Swire Coca-Cola Replaced Global Vendors with a More Flexible Execution Partner
Global vendors were costly and couldn't adapt to local market needs across Swire's Asian operations. Vision Group delivered image recognition, IoT cooler monitoring, and vending pilots tailored to each market, from convenience stores in Vietnam to supermarkets in Hong Kong.
Don’t just take our word for it
We’ve been evolving together since 2018. Anytime we needed flexibility, the team figured it out with us.
Overview
Swire Coca-Cola is the 5th largest Coca-Cola bottler globally, operating across half of mainland China, 13 U.S. states, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and much of Southeast Asia. Execution in retail is central to its strategy, since soft drinks depend on impulse purchase. Matthew Wong, Director of Commercial Analytics & Digital Solutions, has worked with Vision Group since 2018, first in China and later across Asia.
The Challenge
Retail execution has always been the core of Swire’s business, but managing it across diverse markets is complex.
- Standards differ by channel (convenience, supermarkets, mom-and-pop, restaurants).
- Early tracking methods were manual, Excel-based, and unsustainable.
- Global vendors like Trax lacked flexibility for local needs and were costly.
Matthew recalled:
“Back in the 90s, execution checks ran overnight on Excel. Later we moved to handheld photos. It was still slow, expensive, and hard to adapt across markets.”
By 2017, Swire needed a more agile, cost-effective way to track execution and cooler placement.
The Solution
Swire partnered with Vision Group (then Maxerience), RetailEye, and Coca-Cola’s own digital teams to launch:
- IRED image recognition
for execution tracking in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam - Cooler IoT
to monitor placements, prevent loss, and build business cases for new investments - Coke & Go vending pilots
in Hong Kong and Vietnam
This gave Swire a suite of tools tailored to diverse market conditions.
Matthew emphasized the partnership:
"We’ve been evolving together since 2018. Anytime we needed flexibility, the team figured it out with us."
Results
- Execution improvement:
In Vietnam, Swire reset RED (Right Execution Daily) metrics alongside IRED, leading to steady improvement in execution scores. - Competitive insight:
Image recognition revealed shelf conditions and competitor presence, helping reps fight for visibility. - ROI from IoT:
Cooler IoT data cut equipment loss and proved new placements would pay for themselves, convincing bottlers to invest more. - Partnership depth:
Longstanding collaboration with Vision Group and RetailEye has built trust and adaptability across regions.
Matthew explained:
“It was easy to build a business case. With IoT, we showed we weren’t losing coolers anymore, and that alone paid for itself.”
Why Vision Group
For Swire, Vision Group is a trusted partner, though Matthew sees room for growth in storytelling and integration:
“You’re on par with the best out there, but the opportunity is in storytelling. Others sell the story harder, even when the tech is the same.”
He also pointed to the future:
“If you can bring IoT, image recognition, and transaction data together into one analytic platform, that would be very powerful.”