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CONTENTS:

Waterlogic Technical conference in China

2019 Acquisitions

Success story: Purezza France

Meet our distributors- Aquavita

The X-Factor

Building Bridges

Technical features: Billi

Sales and Marketing tips

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WATERLOGIC TECHNICAL CONFERENCE IN CHINA Contributor: Darren Bamber, Senior Technical Manager

Technical and operational managers from across the globe gathered in China in March as part of the ongoing deployment and development of the Waterlogic Way of Operating (WWOO) initiative, which has been introduced to create clarity and uniformity across the business for all operational procedures.

The conference was the first time that managers from our business departments were all together at our manufacturing facility in China. The three-day event provided them with the opportunity to see first-hand how Waterlogic dispensers are built, as well as the chance to gain greater knowledge of how the factory operates, exposing them to the systems and processes that are undertaken daily.

The technical managers learned about challenges that present themselves during manufacturing, which allowed them to have a greater understanding of why changes to design and product quality needs to be implemented at times.

For Waterlogic’s business units, the technical know-how gained from the conference helped each market to improve and remain competitive, and for the Waterlogic Trading team, provided information and knowledge to pass onto their global distributors.

“This conference was a great success and allowed the technical community to understand processes, procedures and constraints, further developing the technical community’s knowledge”, said Darren Bamber, Senior Technical Manager.

“It allowed us to bench mark best practises and build on the areas required going forward.”

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1U.S.

Canada SwedenUK

France

UK

Kingshill mineral water &Cameron water

FRANCE

Aquadreams

U.S.

Advanced water solutions

SWEDEN

Svensk Storkokservice

CANADA

Just Pure

2019 ACQUISITIONS

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SUCCESS STORY

Contributor: Philippe Barnetche

We interviewed Philippe Barnetche who joined Waterlogic France in July 2009 where he was instrumental in increasing revenue, staff numbers and MIF during his tenure. Philippe turned Purezza France into a significant contributor to the overall success of the company. Today he is based in China as Country Manager.

Whilst mineral water is quite popular in France, with widely recognised and strong established brands like Evian, Perrier, Badoit, Volvic and many others, Purezza comes as a competitive offering versus bottled mineral water. However the vast majority of water consumed in the HoReCa space comes from free tap water carafes. Therefore, we see free tap water as our main competitor and position Purezza as an alternative to both mineral water and free tap water, which we called Table Water.

With both bottled mineral water and tap water regarded highly in France, focussing on the water quality of Purezza would not have been a strong enough message in the overcrowded market instead, we introduced Table Water as being another market segment, a very distinct product with its own benefits.

1. How did you position the Purezza proposition in France considering it is a very competitive market where mineral water is very popular and well established?

PUREZZA FRANCE

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2. What key elements of the market did you investigate or research to finalise your proposition and go to market

strategy?

It all started with the economics of water in the HoReCa space such as the:

• cost of a bottle of mineral water to a restaurant owner (quite low on average)

• average retail price to the end customer• market segmentation of restaurants by water bottle sales

A quick financial analysis told us that the cost savings to restaurant owners would be so negligible (if at all), that positioning as an cost alternative to mineral water would narrow our target segment.

We also took into consideration claims from mineral brands, to better understand what customer benefits they were really selling.

3. What growth have you achieved since entering this new segment and what does it mean for the French business?

We installed several hundreds of units and established Purezza as the market leader in 18 months. Our growth is amazing and is now comparable in value to our whole B2B growth.

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SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?Book an appointment at the conference with your Regional Sales Director.

6. If you could start again, what would you do differently?

I think that we did a good job of our market research however, we underestimated how different and complex both logistics and installations would be. In terms of recruitment, we would focus on hiring experienced sales reps with HoReCa experience ensuring that they are real hunters.

5. What are your top three recommendations for a distributor

who is starting in the HoReCA sector?

4. What are the five critical things you need to have in your sales

toolkit to get started?

1. Very clear positioning, with well-defined customer benefits (both restaurant owner and end customer)

2. Bottles and branding. They are the product

3. Caps. They are just as important, as they form an important part of the “ritual”

4. Sales collaterals like table talkers

5. A cold bottle of sparkling water. Prospects love to taste the water. The sales reps will need to have a machine at home, taking care to clean their bottle, fill it in every morning and keep it in isothermal bag

1. Do your market research so that you know what segment you will be targeting and what benefits you will be selling. The winning positioning is not necessarily Michelin stars / alternatives to mineral water.

2. Prepare your logistics and technical teams. HoReCa installations require a more tailor-made approach with much more complexity and expertise.

3. Recruit the right sales reps from the HoReCa industry. Field hunting in the HoReCa space is very different to field hunting in B2B.

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MEET OUR DISTRIBUTORSAQUAVITA Contributors: Jane K.Snow, Managing Director and Barack Odhuno, COO-East Africa

STARTING A POU BUSINESS IN EAST AFRICA

AquaVita is the pioneer and leading provider of Point of Use Water coolers in East Africa. They pride themselves on excellent customer service and technical support across their market sectors and offer customers tailored solutions to the ever increasing environmental impact and costs associated with BWC.

Jane k.Snow, MD of Aquavita, decided to launch the business in East Africa for a few reasons: first of all to build a world-class business that solved a basic need in the region and also to build a business that promoted environmental sustainability, provide employment and career opportunities.

What were the main challenges you faced when you started and how did you overcome them?

There were many challenges in starting our business like one would expect in any start-up. For us there were three key challenges:

1. SLOW ADOPTION OF POU TECHNOLOGY: The real challenge was building credibility and efficacy of our equipment. We operate in an environment that does not trust tap water therefore telling people they were drinking purified tap water was not an easy sale. We took a two-pronged approach to address this challenge: first, show the science through our certified water tests and secondly, utilise market influencers such as blue-chip companies as our reference customers. These were critical in the adoption of our early customers.

2. SOURCING SALES TALENT: It was challenging to find experienced B2B sales talent. We utilised both executive search firms and personal networks to source talent. However, it was still hard to find great talent because first, there are no other POU businesses and secondly, there are only a handful of B2B leasing businesses in the market. This meant that we hired the best people we could find and trained them on how to sell our service.

3. LOGISTICS OF SOURCING EQUIPMENT: We had to deal with significant delays in clearing our equipment from the port when we first started. We ultimately contracted a global logistics company to assist us with the process which has improved our shipment clearing periods.

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We generally have between 24 to 36 months renewable rental agreements with our customers, payable in advance on a quarterly basis.

In general, we have developed a strong portfolio of customers over the years. We typically have customers from every industry in Kenya covering finance, banking, hospitality, education, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, construction and facility management.

We have found it very useful to make use of the social equity that we have within the organisation. Deep relationships that have been developed over time by management, sales and technical teams with various stakeholders have led us to some of our most impactful opportunities in the market. In addition, our strong reputation as a customer-centric brand has generated a lot of referrals for our business in East Africa.

How do you structure your rental plans with the customers?

What type of business do you target and how?

What recommendations would you give to someone starting a POU business now?

The advice I would give is to have patience, make sure you have adequate capital given that this is a capital-intensive business and most importantly build a strong performance-based culture especially for your sales team.

How has the business grown in the last two years?

We are the pioneering leaders providing of POU systems in East Africa. We operate in three countries, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with Kenya as our leading market. We employ over 30 people across three countries and serve hundreds of customers across the region. Our top line continues to grow at over 60% a year and we are aiming to grow at 100% in the next three years.

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WHAT ARE THE THREE MAIN OBJECTIVES FOR AQUAVITA IN 2019?1. We want to grow our cooler footprint in East Africa by 100%

2. We want to ensure that we are fully operational in the new markets that we have opened in 2019

3. We want to position our business as a thought leader and expert in the POU business in East Africa

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned in growing a POU business?

Customers need to be educated that this solution is the only sustainable and healthy drinking water option that we have, and that they can be part of the process that contributes towards making the world a better place. From an operational perspective, it is extremely critical to have a team that is self-driven, skilled, competent and extremely passionate about how a bottle-less drinking water solution solves the various environmental, safety and administrative pain points that customers have.

Secondly, there must be a thorough management system to manage the sales process. It is critical that all the risks in the process from prospecting to closure are managed so that the sales person selling is in control of the sales process. Lastly, it is critical to ensure the customer experience is nothing short of superb. There must be a system that ensures that customer requests/needs are attended to in a timely manner and with utmost professionalism.

Your sales team grew 30% in the last year, how do you keep everybody focused and motivated?

The growth in our sales teams has been necessitated by various factors. We expanded to new markets in Kenya and have operationalised another outfit in Uganda. We have also had to augment our capacity in Tanzania. Furthermore, we wanted to experiment on new models of external resources with strong social equity to assist in improving opportunities for our business. Our team has therefore grown by about 30% in the last year.

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Waterpure Office Systems is a Romanian company providing full services for drinking water supply at the office. They were born out of the need to improve the workplace within Romanian companies and they are doing so through high-end technologies, innovative water dispensers and integrated custom solutions for every single client in their portfolio.

THE X-FACTOR WATERPURE OFFICE SYSTEM

Contributor: Mihai Sugureanu, Managing Director

X Factor of our Waterlogic Distributors

We started a collaboration with a digital marketing agency from Bucharest, who specialise in providing professional branding, web and graphic design, and digital advertising solutions. One of our key objectives was to have a user-friendly design that was responsive and optimised for SEO. The emphasis was on presenting the water dispensers, our services, the technologies behind the products and the benefits that future users could obtain by choosing to work with us. By communicating our needs in a clear and concise way to the digital agency we managed to obtain excellent results and build a sustainable business partnership.

The need to improve the Waterpure website came out of the need to fulfil our long-term business objectives. Although we had gained a large number of significant business partners, both local and internationally by the start of 2018, we found ourselves in need of improving our brand awareness.

The main objectives were to grow our business, increase the number of Romanian companies using Waterlogic dispensers and reach our target audience more efficiently.

Rebuilding our website from scratch was the best way to grow our portfolio, create a brand community and inform our prospects about our services, products and our company philosophy.

Last year Waterpure decided to invest money and resources into improving their website. Today their data shows that this strategic step was crucial to increase their lead generation up to 30%. Alongside this, their social media activities are increasing together with brand awareness.

1. Why did you need to improve the website?

2. Did you use an external digital agency? If so, what was their brief and how did you communicate this to them?

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• We have increased the number of new leads having implemented a new website that is enhanced with SEO, user interface and user experience in mind. It is now easier for users to find us online, and view our products and services. The website design is focused on lead generation so by improving our contact forms we have received more leads. We conducted research to find out which topics are important to the decision making process and found that health technologies and user advantages were key, so we focused our content on these topics. Since launching the new sitethere has been 30% growth in lead generation.

• The growth in lead generation is directly related to sales growth. We contact all the leads in a short timescale converting more than half the leads to a monthly subscription.

• Starting with the implementation of the new website users can easily find our website and navigate to find the information about the company, products and services that they need. They can also gain a better understanding of what it means to be a partner. Working with the agency has allowed us to have direct control over website reporting as well as understand and interpret the data of our clients (like demographics, interests and needs). Looking at that data is helping us to improve our communication, offers and touch points.

• Having a good website is key to improving our social media advertising campaigns. After the website implementation, we started running integrated campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads and LinkedIn which have brought us a significant number of leads, and at the same time, helped us to improve our brand awareness and create a brand community.

3. What results have been achieved from implementing the new website?

The decision to do the website change was a challenge for us. We didn’t face a difficult situation during this process because we had a clear strategy and plan with the agency.

4. What challenges have you experienced during the change to the new website:

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1. It’s very important to have an optimised website. If a new website needs to be build, check the quality of your developers.

2. Define SMART objectives that you can measure against to understand where you want to go with your strategy.

3. Have a clear vision for your website.

BOOK YOUR MEETING AT THE CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY Get in touch with Federica at Federica.Micheli@waterlogic.com

5. What are your top recommendations?

4. Choose a good design partner or build a great design team to handle your project. as they need to understand your vision and goals.

5. Be open to suggestions. Professional web designers are very creative and innovative. Being open-minded and taking into account their suggestions and recommendations will be beneficial.

6. Know your competition and do your market research on and offline If you want to build a successful website, you need to be different. That is why knowing your market must be a priority.

7. Be organised. You may have many ideas, you may change your mind a few times before you make the final decision. Take your time, organise and analyse your ideas and then send them to your design partners-only those ideas that you believe in matter.

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The conference is around the corner

In a couple of days the Waterlogic Trading team will welcome select distributors at the 6th Waterlogic International Conference, in the enchanting capital of Prague, in the Czech Republic.

What to look forward to?

Two and a half days of presentations, interviews, workshops and meetings that will be centred around the conference theme Building Bridges. Together, we will think about growth and customer retention and will have a great chance to learn in-depth about the newest member of the Waterlogic family, Billi as well as a new growth area, HoReCa.

The conference is organised with a focus on sustainability. There will be no single-use plastic and all conference materials are made of either recycled or fully bio- degradable materials. A green message will be conveyed by an engaging external speaker who will share inspiring ideas on positive change for our planet.

BUILDING BRIDGES WATERLOGIC INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Contributor: Veronika Vildman

WHAT’S NEXT? SAVE THE DATE!Aquatech, the world’s leading trade show for the water industry, will take place from the 5th - 8th November 2019 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You can find Waterlogic on a brand new stand, located in Pavilion 1, just a few steps from the Innovation Lab.

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WELCOME TO BILLI

Billi was first started in 1989 with the very first Billi system launching in 1993. This was a world first for an under the counter boiling and chilled water filtered system. As the years progressed the technology did too! New tap designs, unique cooling and heating with patent technology.

Waterlogic are very proud to introduce Billi into our full range of products to fill the gap of under the counter systems and what better way of doing it than with the best product in the market. Billi has a host of unique selling propositions with a sleek and stylish tap design and intuitive system software, the Billi system has everything you could need or want from an under the counter boiling, chilled, sparkling and filtered system.

The quadra is available in five different output varieties:

TECHNICAL FEATURES TECHNICAL AND OPERATIONALS BEST PRACTICES

Introducing the Quadra range

1 cup = 170 ml.

Model Suggested n. of people

Boiling water delivery cups per hour

Chilled water delivery cups per hour

Height (mm)

Width (mm)

Depth (mm)

Quadra Compact up to 16 100 150 340 315 365

Quadra 420 up to 20 100 150 340 315 465

Quadra 440 up to 40 150 175 340 315 465

Quadra 460 up to 60 180 175 340 315 465

Quadra 460 Sparkling up to 60 180 200C&S

Boiling41 0340

255315

420465

XL Levered dispenser XT Touch Lever XR Remote LeverQuadra under-counter

Contributor: Darren Bamber, Senior Technical Manager

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Quadra SystemWith water passing over the compressor and absorbing the heat from the refrigerant we are able to pre-heat the hot water up to 50 degrees celsius. This means that we use less energy to heat hot water making the design eco and environmentally friendly.

The Quadra system also uses a pumped hot water system to ensure optimum safety when dispensing hot water from a Billi unit.

InstallationWith a focus on space saving, Billi units are often less than half the size of comparative products. This allows for the most economical use of under-counter space.

The Quadra system is the only machine in the world to use patent water-cooled condenser meaning there is no need for ventilation when installing a Billi Quadra system.

Utilising the preheated water generated from cooling the condenser, the hot water is heated in the hot tank and pumped out and back into the hot tank, this means we can ensure up to 98 degrees of hot water upon every dispense.

DO YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS ON BILLI?Book your meeting with your Regional Sales Director at the Conference in Prague

DID YOU KNOW?The Quadra system is the only machine in the world that use a patent water-cooled condenser meaning there is no need for ventilation when installing a Billi Quadra system.

WATER

REFRIGERANT

Condenser Coil

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What do you want to achieve?

We have 10 seconds to win the attention of a website visitor. If you focus on one thing when creating content, it should be to add value into every word you write – meaning your content must answer your customers’ most pressing questions and showcase the value your business offers.

Reflect on your goals and consider what type of content will best support your business KPIs. Maybe it’s a newsletter to build brand awareness, a follow-up email sequence that shows cross-sell and upsell opportunities to customers who have purchased before or blog content to generate more traffic. Just remember to deliver value to your customer at every step.

SALES AND MARKETING TIPSTHREE ESSENTIAL TIPS TO CREATE CONTENT YOUR CUSTOMERS LOVE

Contributors: Sidrah Ahmad and Federica Micheli

Compelling content builds a broad audience

By using content to share your core message, you can reach a wide audience, settle concerns about your product or service, and provide the key benefits to generate leads. Better still, by publishing online, you give readers something to share with other industry professionals.

Web content delivers more than just value to your customer. It helps improve your website’s ranking on search engines such as Google and Bing to make it easier for your customers to find your business.

Additionally, the search engines use your articles and videos to understand the product or service that your company sells. When a customer searches for a business in your niche, Google can reference keywords, then list your page towards the top of the search results. In this way, great content not only showcases your industry expertise, but it also increases the traffic to your website. Once customers find your site, you can show the necessary information to capture a higher number of high-quality leads.

When you think about content, think beyond blog articles and videos. Detailed product descriptions can be a valuable way to acquire new customers as informative content can convince an unsure prospect to purchase your unique offering. Better still, these descriptions are the perfect place to include specific keywords that add context to what your page is about, which Google can reference when looking for relevant websites.

Product and service descriptions help you sell

Additionally, an in-depth FAQ or services page could be the difference between an existing customer switching to a competitor or sticking with your company.

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1. Create the typeof content yourideal customerwill search for

2. Follow SEO best practices by using the following checklist

It’s imperative to consider what your ideal customer is searching for before you write a word. Speak to prospects, run internal brainstorming sessions between departments, gather ideas and focus on the ones you know are of interest to the right sort of customer.

You can supplement your ideas using online tools like answerthepublic, keywordtool.io or Google Trends. Be sure to stick with subjects that you know your audience will search for and bring every piece of content back to focus on the product or service your business offers.

Remember: Great content is educational: it focuses on what your reader wants to learn, not only what you want to sell.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) will push your content to a higher ranking on Google and other search engines, thereby helping your content get found when you publish online.

Use the following checklist and the examples to apply SEO best practice to everything you create.

Almost 72% of the words on your webpages can go unread?

Did you know?

USE THE FOLLOWING THREE TIPS TO CREATE CONTENT YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL READ TO THE FINAL FULL STOP

Create a short URL that contains your primary keyword;

Use your keyword(s) in the subtitles as well –

also referred to as an H2;

Use your primary keyword(s) in the title – also referred to as an H1;See Ahrefs list of the best free tools for keyword research

Remember: SEO best practice will help your content rank higher on search engines, which will increase the likelihood of readers finding your content.

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Search engine results pages (SERPs) look at the format of your content to decide how high your page should rank. If an article appears challenging to read; the site navigation is unclear, broken links are displayed on your page, Google will penalise your content with a lower page ranking.Generate the traffic your content deserves by using:

• titles, sub-titles and white space to make content easy to read;• numbered and bulleted lists to simplify the presentation;• clear site navigation that makes it easy to find content from your homepage; • social sharing to broaden readership.

LET US KNOW HOW THESE TIPS HELP YOUR CONTENT

We hope you enjoyed this edition of our Global Partner Newsletter and that we inspired you with new ideas and tips.To ensure we continue to improve its format and contents, we would like to hear your feedback and suggestions for the next edition.Please send us your comments and ideas for new topics to Federica at Federica.Micheli@waterlogic.com

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Remember: Google will know if your content is easy to read. Use reader-friendly formatting to boost your chance of topping search engine results pages.

3: Format your content to make it easy to read

Content is as critical as ever in earning online success. 53% of marketers consider content marketing as a priority to generate more leads in 2019.

Follow these three tips for success and remember to:

1. maintain a focus on your customer;

2. follow SEO best practice;

3. make sure your content is easy to understand for customers and Google.