Event Programme

Presentation: Lead from the future: Growth, opportunity and resilience in the 21st Century Watercooler Industry

How do leaders harness disruption as a tailwind for learning, growth and reimagination? Industry disruption, new technologies, and agile business models are opening up high -potential opportunities for new market creation and growth and yet 3/4 leaders struggle to outpace the forces of disruption. New contexts demand new mindsets and brave new questions. What are the new leadership mindsets to lead from the future in spite of our current success? Terence Mauri will guide delegates on the journey to reimagine and sustain a growth-led, adaptive and resilient future.

Terence Mauri is the founder of Hack Future Lab, a global management think tank that helps leaders to turn headwinds and uncertainty into bold action. Terence is a visiting Professor at IE Business School in Madrid and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been described as ‘an outspoken and influential thinker on the future of work and leadership’ by Thinkers50. His new book ‘The 3D Leader: take your leadership to the next dimension’ has been described as a ‘powerful call to action for leaders to navigate economic headwinds’.

Presentation: LATEST EUROPEAN MARKET AND INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS AND OUTLOOK

Statistics and insights for bottled and mains-fed water dispensers as well as integrated tap systems in East and West Europe to give a full overview for future business planning. Delegates will receive a copy of a special WE member summary report at the conference.

Richard Hall is an acknowledged expert on the international food and drinks sector, chairing and speaking at numerous industry conferences. In 1991 he formed Zenith as a specialist business consultancy for the food and drink industries. The company now has more than 1000 clients in over 50 countries. He also chairs FoodBev Media, which he founded in 2000. Its team publishes three business journals, including “Refreshment”, and manages the foodbev.com website.

Presentation: SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Bill Bruce considers a ‘Sustainable future’ for the European water cooler industry, looking at: the need for a circular economy; the language we use when talking about ‘green’; carbon footprints and carbon neutrality; the realities of the environmental sustainability landscape; the effects of European legislation consumer opinion; and what the future holds…

Bill Bruce has a long history of working in the watercooler sector, having been the editor of Europe’s first dedicated sector magazine: H20 Europe (over 20 years ago), and more recent sector publications such as The Point, Cooler Innovation, Cooler Plus and Refreshment. Bill left FoodBev in 2016 and now runs his own PR, communications and marketing consultancy, specialising in clients in the food and beverage, and food packaging industries. With 40 years’ experience, Bill Bruce is an all-rounder who started his career as a graphic designer, before moving into marketing, PR and journalism. For the past 25 years his main focus has been the food and beverage industry with a particular interest in packaging and environmental sustainability

Presentation:AIR PURIFIERS; AN ADDITION TO YOUR WATER DISPENSER BUSINESS

Indoor air quality is affected by many factors and activities. The presence of several people in poorly ventilated indoor rooms quickly leads to ‚stale air’ Air purifiers offer a simple, effective and inexpensive solution to significantly improve indoor air quality. This will lead to more concentrated and fitter employees and fewer problems with respiratory problems such as asthma and allergies. The business model is comparable to the water cooler business model. Air cleaners only need a power socket, can be sold or rented, and filter change.

Peter Hogervorst has spent all his working life in bottling. Starting at Heineken in 1987 and moving to the 5 Gallon industry with Dolphin in 2000, he has experience in bottling beer, soft drinks and, of course, water. In 2007 he completed the acquisition of Dolphin Production in Mierlo, Netherlands. In 2012 he acquired Porla Brunn, Sweden. In 2015 the German branch was founded in a joint venture with family owned Teamblue resulting in Teamblue Dolphin with more than 100 years of experience in the watercooler industry, especially in bottling. In 2021 the former Kalimba spring in Lanaken, Belgium was acquired and Dolphin Bottling Belgium was founded. Every year around 100 million litres of water are filled by the group for more than 50 distributors in 9 countries from the North Cape to the Alps. In 2020 Teamblue Dolphin started with the sale of Air Cleaners in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium resulting in over 1500 installations.

Presentation:The Home Water Dispenser Market – Lessons learnt from around the world

• Brief recap on Middle East, USA and UK experience in this industry.
• Love Water and the UK Home market
• The advantages of having a Home customer base
• Choosing your ideal customer profile
• Choosing your Product Range
• Rent or Sell? – That is the question
• Home Service Contracts
• Minimising bad debts
• Sanitising Home dispensers
• Delivery Schedules and Service Levels
• Customer communication
• Marketing – What works and what doesn’t.
• Efficiency Stats and Customer Turnover
• Impact from the Pandemic
• The future

Nick entered the water dispenser industry in 1985 when he joined Ionics/Aquacool in a sales and marketing role to help build a new business supplying homes and businesses in Bahrain with water dispensers. This was followed by managing their operation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and eventually working in the US running their Baltimore operation.

When Nick decided to head back to the UK, it was in the early days of the industry there in 1990. He joined a small London business called Aquaporte as Sales & Marketing Director. This business was eventually sold, and in 1996 Nick started a London watercooler business called Office Refreshments Ltd. This was sold in 2004, and after a few years Nick re-entered the industry starting Love Water.

Love Water was originally geared towards building a home customer base but over time this has expanded into B2B, but the home customers still retain over 25% of the business income.

Nick will give you an insightful view of his experience in the home water dispenser business in the Middle East, the USA and in England. He will give his views on the dos and don’ts, and why in today’s Hybrid workforce, there has never been a better time to market to this sector.

Presentation:IOT (INTERNET OF THINGS) TECHNOLOGY IN THE WATERCOOLER INDUSTRY: OPPORTUNITIES, TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS

More and more companies are looking for innovative solutions to optimize their service and offer to their customers real time assistance in the most sustainable way: is the IoT their future? This presentation covers the advantages for customers and for service companies, in terms of opportunities, savings and image.

Blupura is an Italian manufacturing company of mains-fed water dispensers. With a Masters Degree in International Economics and Business, Debora joined Blupura in 2013. She is now one of the most longstanding employees of Blupura and has actively contributed to its development; one of the major players of the water dispenser industry.

Presentation:Sustainable Hydration: How to introduce bottle filling stations and other solutions to your portfolio.

We have long since known that single-use plastic bottles have had a huge impact on our environment and a major contributor to the 380 million metric tonnes of plastic produced annually. But could there be a way to encourage reuse with a refill revolution? Hydration Solution expert, Mark Cross, talks through some examples of ingenious bottle filling products and initiatives, showing that small changes businesses are making to reach their sustainability goals can have a huge impact.

Mark is incredibly enthusiastic about the water dispenser industry. He has over 20 years commercial experience in the UK water dispenser market, starting with Aquacool and Angel Springs, now with Waterlogic. Having worked in field sales, key account management, inside sales, digital, CRM, PPC and SEO he now heads up Waterlogic UK sales and marketing and is Managing Director of MIW Water Cooler Experts.

Presentation:HOW TO USE YOUR IT SYSTEM AND DATA TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE

Whatever your plan is for the future: be it growing your business, improving processes or even preparing to sell sometime in the future, the quality and clarity of your data is vital and will make a huge difference. Sometimes, you need to hire experts to cleanse data and your processes. Other times your team needs to capture the right information, at the right time, ensuring information is up to date and helpful; allowing your team and business to be ready for the next level. It doesn’t matter if you know your business by heart, if your systems don’t allow you to sell your story

Francisco is Co-founder and Managing Director of Activewhere since 1998. He has managed project after project, analyzing and coordinating the development and the implementation of thousands of ideas, from hundreds of people, from many world regions, all of them operating in the Water industry. Looking into the data and business processes of customers and prospects to find ways to take advantage of the historical data and the culture of the organisations, converting the software implementation projects into change and improvement. Activewhere has worked with some of the most important players in the world in the Water Industry, in more than thirty countries. Activewhere and their customers have liaised and worked closely to achieve the best results for the future.