Analysts See Brewers Squeezing Incremental Profits from Middle Tier

Chris Pitcher at Redburn says that A-B can also "centralise planning/routing, back office and admin functions across even non-contiguous distributorships as has been done with significant benefits to margin by some large MillerCoors distributors." What's interesting about this observation is that Chris equates MillerCoors' distributor consolidation with A-B buying branches. Could this be the model? Could the model going forward be for MillerCoors to encourage consolidation and mergers, while A-B buys up branches and fixes footprints to play catch up?