Who is Eckes-Granini?

Eckes-Granini is the European leader in fruit juices and a major player in the beverage and juice aisles of large supermarkets. With its benchmark brands such as Joker, Granini, and Pago, the company operates in a highly competitive sector where product availability, shelf layout, and commercial responsiveness are critical success levers.

Established in France with a large national team, Eckes-Granini operates in a complex environment. The beverage market is becoming increasingly complex, retailers are demanding finer shelf management, and field teams must manage a growing portfolio of product lines. At the same time, the company is pursuing an expansion strategy by diversifying its offering and developing shared partnerships with other players in the sector. In this context, modernizing systems is a strategic necessity.

The initial challenge: overwhelmed teams, rigid tools

Before 2024, Eckes-Granini relied on a legacy CRM that no longer met current needs. The old system had poor functionality, was too cumbersome to use, provided no real-time data, lagged regularly, and operated exclusively on computers. Sales representatives spent time manually entering data on the shelves, line by line, and then transcribing it into the system. This administrative friction created daily frustration, distracting teams from their real focus: sales and customer service.

Rémy Guilbert, National Sales Director, summarizes the initial situation: “We really needed to find new systems tailored to our sales reps to truly boost their efficiency in the field. And that's the most important thing. All of our field teams are under real pressure today.” Increasingly complex shelves, a lack of real-time visibility, and the inability to cover the entire product portfolio were hindering growth.

Why Sidely and EasyPicky together?

Rémy and his team made a bold strategic choice: to simultaneously deploy two complementary systems rather than implementing them progressively. “Because they are two systems that match our ambitions, we were facing two solid companies. For us, we needed to be solid, reliable, and immediately ready. If we were going to change, we might as well do it right and change everything directly.”

EasyPicky captures field data on video, automatically detects products, and converts them into KPIs in seconds. Sidely structures this data in a modern CRM and enables managers to track performance in real time, retailer by retailer. This 360° approach addresses three fundamental needs: accelerating data collection, ensuring reliable information from the field to headquarters, and offering sales representatives an intuitive and motivating user experience.

Adoption: 6 months of complete integration

The timeline was ambitious but structured. Between October 2024 and February 2025, Eckes-Granini managed a customization and back-end integration phase to ensure EasyPicky and Sidely communicated seamlessly, completely offline, and without friction for the field. The training of the 50 sales representatives identified as key leads was conducted quickly and was well received by all.

In March 2025, the go-live was effective across the entire supermarket network. More than 50 sales representatives began working natively with the integrated system. This rapid adoption is the result of close co-development with our partners.

How Sidely and EasyPicky transform daily field operations

Before each visit, the sales rep accesses the complete context of the store: portfolio positioning, coverage rate, latest actions. In the field, EasyPicky quickly films the shelf and automatically detects the products present. “Everything works 100% Offline. We have reliable and instantaneous data. I walk past the shelf, do my inventory in less than 30 seconds, all thanks to a simple video, and then it is imported directly into my CRM, which also receives the data in real time.”

Sidely: much more than a CRM, a decision-making processor

Sidely operates as the operational backbone of the system. This is where the real transformation happens: Sidely does not just receive raw data from EasyPicky; it processes it, calculates it, and transforms it into immediately actionable decision-making intelligence.

When a sales rep films a shelf with EasyPicky, raw data flows into Sidely in real time: detected products, facings, availability. Sidely then recalculates all of these elements according to Eckes-Granini's specific parameters. It determines hot zones based on the product type and its expected positioning, calculates the lost sales product by product, and detects stockouts and incomplete assortments. All of this is done automatically, without manual intervention.

This ability of Sidely to transform raw data into calculated KPIs is crucial. Unlike traditional systems where the sales rep or manager must manually enter data and then try to interpret it, here the indicators are built instantaneously and at the desired granularity. Emmanuel, CRM Manager at Eckes-Granini, has complete autonomy to build reports and dashboards according to his needs: by product, by store, by sales rep, by retailer, or by category. He can cross-reference this information according to current priorities.

Sidely also structures the entire sales journey: targeting priority points of sale, planning optimized routes, managing promotional campaigns and displays, and consolidated analyses at all hierarchical levels. This is why Rémy Guilbert states: “It is imported directly into my Sidely CRM, which also receives the data in real time. It is super easy to use and all KPIs can be managed directly for my field teams, managers, and headquarters.”

This architecture radically transforms operational responsiveness. A regional manager instantly sees if a shelf is not well-stocked in their stores. The National Director has real-time visibility on field activity after 50 morning visits. Every level of management makes decisions not based on 48-hour-old data, but on the direct reality of the field.

Concrete benefits

The results are measurable and sustainable. Each field visit saves 30 minutes, multiplied by the 200+ sales representatives in the supermarket network. On new product launches, availability and shelf presence increased by 20%. Product coverage exploded: Eckes-Granini went from managing 4 categories to 7 in just a few months. Inventories are completed 2.5 times faster than with the legacy system.

“The revolution in this is really the fact that we receive all data instantaneously. Managers can also monitor their regional activity in real time, and I, at the national level, can see the data from my sales reps instantly after 50 visits conducted during the morning.”

Thanks to these productivity gains, Eckes-Granini did not need to recruit more sales reps to cover new categories. “We go much faster, which has allowed us to cover more shelves with the same number of sales reps. That is the most important thing, and it is thanks to these tools. Here, I didn't need to recruit five or 10 more sales reps to cover more categories.”

A revealing example: the Valade case

The Valade partnership embodies the power of this transformation. Prior to this collaboration, Valade managed 10 product lines in supermarkets on its own. After mutualizing resources with Eckes-Granini and fully activating the systems, this portfolio reached 40 products. With the same headcount, the managed portfolio was multiplied by 4. This multiplier of commercial value, without increasing HR costs, illustrates the true ROI of the solution.

Overall impact: productivity, employer brand, and retention

Beyond operational figures, the transformation strengthens corporate culture. Modern and intuitive systems bolster the employer brand and attract qualified profiles. Rémy Guilbert highlights: “These tools are so modern that they also help us with recruitment. It also allows us to reduce administrative friction, bringing less frustration to employees concerning these tasks.”

Less turnover, greater capability to absorb external growth, stronger team engagement. At the same time, sales representatives now have more time for selling and customer advice, their true business-value focus. “I do a few more visits per week and per sales rep, but above all when my sales reps are in stores, they are there to sell.”

A co-development partnership

A key element of success lies in choosing partners rather than service providers. Rémy explains: “We chose our partners; we did not choose service providers. We co-developed the project.” This approach made it possible to customize solutions to Eckes-Granini's specific business needs, rather than undergoing a rigid implementation. The partners' responsiveness also played a fundamental role: when an issue arises, the teams work together to solve it quickly.