“We want to make this product as big as possible, as fast as possible.”
For Thomas Johansson, CEO of functional sports drink startup iQ Fuel, speed and impact are how the success of his company is measured. Talking from his home in Stockholm, Johansson describes how iQ Fuel has “exploded” onto the crowded energy drinks market in Sweden.
“In Sweden, the energy drink market is really big, and synthetic caffeine drinks are super popular,” he explains. “But they can also be dangerous, and there have been lots of stories in the papers recently about the connection between energy drinks and heart problems.
“What we are doing at iQ Fuel is bringing a new, healthier category of functional drink to the market, one without caffeine, without taurine, without sugar—without all the negative health effects usually associated with energy drinks.”
It is a bold and worthy mission, although the odds of success are stacked against any startup. But what Johansson and his team realized when they embarked on this venture less than a year ago was that they could shorten those odds dramatically by building their business model around the right technology.
“The solution we have from Microsoft is the perfect fit for what we are trying to do,” says Johansson.
By their very nature, startups are disruptive. Typically led by a small team of passionate entrepreneurs who have identified a gap in the market, their ambitions, goals and timelines are almost always focused on fast-paced success.
Swedish company iQ Fuel is no exception. “We work really fast and really hard, but we believe in having fun at work too,” Johansson says of the culture at the company, which is headquartered in Stockholm.
“Because you have to take both joy and pride in what you do.”
Johansson had been working in the energy drinks sector for the better part of a decade when he responded to growing public concern over the negative health impacts of energy drinks—as well as their growing appeal to young children.
“We wanted to create a product that everyone could be proud of,” he says. “A cleaner product that could be accessible to everyone.”
The result is iQ Fuel’s range of professional-grade, vegan, caffeine-, taurine-, and sugar-free functional sport drinks, which can be enjoyed by everyone from children to professional athletes.
It is a product that has grown from an idea to a reality found on shop shelves across Sweden—all in less than a year.
“Everything has happened so fast,” says Johansson, reflecting on the development of the company. “And when things go that fast, it is crucial that you have the right technology behind you.”
iQ Fuel’s disruptive, fast-moving business model relies heavily on its dedicated field sales teams who travel around Sweden having conversations with stakeholders interested in stocking and selling their drinks.
“When you work like we do, you need a system to connect everybody,” says Johansson. “Like an umbrella.”
To do that, iQ Fuel enlisted the support of Swedish Microsoft partner and cloud solution specialist Zelly. “They’re a young company and so are we,” says Rickard Rosen, Alliance Manager and Cofounder of Zelly. “They’re agile, they’re entrepreneurial, they go fast. So it was a good match.”
Zelly worked with the team at iQ Fuel to help implement a modern, secure, user-friendly, and scalable IT platform that’s cloud-based and includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM)—as well as collaboration and infrastructure tools.
“We need to be able to connect our storage facilities with our sales team members in the field and with us in the office. With the solution we’ve implemented, we all have secure access to real-time data from across our whole company, we can all work together and see everything that everybody is doing. It’s perfect for our industry,” says Johansson.
Critical to the success of this infrastructure is the cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system and the Dynamics 365 Sales Professional CRM system it integrates with, which has been implemented with the additional support of Swedish Microsoft partner NAB Solutions.
The integrated ERP and CRM system helps iQ Fuel manage their core business processes such as finances, HR, and supply chain. “It allows us to harness data from multiple sources across the business,” says Johansson. “So we have insight into everything from the number of drinks we’ve sold through specific resellers, to the number of customers that visit particular stores.
“We now have the full overview of our business,” he adds. “From activities of the sales team to the details of our resellers and stores—day by day, hour by hour. And we have control over it at every moment we need it.
“Ultimately, it helps us make better decisions,” he concludes.
The impact of the solution has been immediate since it has gone live, with a 20 percent increase in sales meetings, orders up by 15 percent, and sales boosted by 10 percent.
“The technology has given us a more professional appearance to our customers,” says Johansson.
“With Power BI drawing from the data contained in our Business Central and Sales Professional solutions, we can instantly paint them a picture of the success of the company—the profit margins and numbers of customers who buy our products. They’re not used to the data visualizations you can achieve with Power BI, so they really love it when they can see an overview of everything we do during our sales meetings.”
But the benefits of the technology have gone beyond simply making the company more successful with their sales targets. It has also enabled the company to become more efficient—and attractive to the best sellers.
“With the Business Applications system, our sellers save significant time, as they don't need to switch between applications,” says Johansson. “They have everything they need at their fingertips when they’re traveling, which definitely makes us a more attractive company to work for.
“It used to take our sales reps an hour and a half to write down what they had done on every visit,” he adds. “Now they can record and share everything instantly using Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. They can plan better, and when they’re with the stores, the information reaches us in the office in real time with this system.
“Our sales managers can access that data directly and give the reps the right help directly. So we save a lot of time. And that time is giving us these numbers.
“So we get more meetings with resellers, we get more orders, and sales have increased.”
Making fast progress is key to iQ Fuel’s business plan, which has a three- to five-year lifecycle. In that time, the company wants to translate the success they are already achieving with in-person sales in stores to the digital space. And the infrastructure they have put in place will make boosting online sales through their website much easier to achieve.
Johansson is also keen to make sure the company seizes all the opportunities that come its way. “We always try new things and want to be part of making new things,” he says. “We want to jump on everything that makes it better and easier for us to work. That’s what we are doing with this system.”
And with the goal of the company to continue to “explode” in the Swedish energy drink market and then be bought up by a larger company in three to five years, having the right technology at the core of the business makes the company a much more attractive purchase proposition.
“When you have this kind of system at your core, giving management control of everything, and all the information about the company presented in a modern way,” he says.
“Then it is much easier to sell the company.”
With iQ Fuel already reaping the benefits of its cloud-based, integrated system, Johansson and his team look well-positioned to achieve their goal.
But in the meantime, the team at iQ Fuel will continue to follow and apply the guiding principle that has taken them this far already. “We want to make everything a little bit better than everybody else,” says Johansson.
“If we do that, then I am sure we will achieve all of our dreams and ambitions.” And with the energy and commitment that Johansson and his team so clearly embody, who could doubt them?
“Everything has happened so fast. And when things go that fast, it is crucial that you have the right technology behind you.”
Thomas Johansson, CEO, iQ Fuel
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