OIV gears up to launch digital transformation strategy

By Lisa Riley

Published: 03 November, 2020

The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) is gearing up to implement a digital transformation strategy spurred on by the pandemic having highlighted ecommerce as “an extraordinary determinative to more traditional distribution channels”.

Those were the words of Pau Roca, director general, OIV, as he talked about the impact of Covid-19 on the wine sector as part of the industry body announcing its estimated global wine production for 2020 last week.

Pinpointing ecommerce as “key for the future of wine sales”, Roca emphasised how its development has been boosted by the pandemic saying the sector was “well placed to keep growing via this channel”.

“If we look at the world's major economies, ecommerce wine sales growth is in value projected to rise by about 48% this year (IWSR) - three times the growth observed in 2019,” he said.

This increase was “even more surprising” when considering wine consumption is expected to drop by about 9% in 2020 in all key global wine markets, added Roca.

But this, he said, was just an example of the opportunities coming from digitalisation of the sector.

“The wine sector should be prepared and digitalisation has to be incorporated in many ways that involve processors, certification, traceability and Sage management services, and all these will generate data that is very valuable,” he said.

OIV’s digital transformation strategy will, among other projects, include the creation of an observatory hub that will study and analyse the “recent evolution” of the digitalisation applied to the wine sector, and "what we call a digital garage” where different digital initiatives and prototypes can be tested, said Roca.

In addition, he said the OIV Secretariat would develop a data analytics lab with the aim of becoming an “international centre of security of data collection and analysis”.

“I hope that all these together with the implementation of our 2024 strategic plan will represent a small but meaningful step towards the development of a more innovative and resilient wine sector."

The news was announced as the OIV estimated that global wine production for 2020 will remain below the five-year average and in line with 2019.