Diageo To Overhaul IT Environment With Cloud-Based Upgrade
Alcohol beverage company Diageo, which owns Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker, is overhauling its IT infrastructure and transforming its business finance operations, moving over to the cloud to elevate processes, introduce enterprise-wide agility, and initiate more intuitive decision-making capabilities.
This new IT environment is set to improve Diageo’s resiliency and improve customer experiences. The new five-year initiative, powered by SAP’s RISE program with support from IBM Consulting, will simplify and streamline the company’s tech stack under a single operating platform with improved reporting tools and real-time reactivity to market- and consumer-prompted fluctuations.
Other improvements include real-time tracking on a global scale to elevate consumer engagement and customer service, and the digitization of compliance and controls.
In a statement, Lavanya Chandrashekar, chief financial officer for Diageo, said the investment in digital transformation will allow the company to access “world-class actionable insights and enhanced data capabilities to support growth whilst allowing us to be more efficient in our day-to-day operations."
Diageo will be measuring the success of this initiative by establishing several KPIs related to performance with customers, suppliers, other third parties, and its employees’ experience. According to a company spokesperson, Diageo expects to see results as soon as it starts implementing the first wave of the project “late next calendar year.”
Why this particular investment? According to Diageo, the company was in need of a way to simplify and unify its global systems to keep up with changing market demands.
“We operate in 180 different markets and need a modern, single operating platform with consistent processes, allowing us to measure performance in a way that drives true insight and action,” said the spokesperson.
Full-scale IT overhauls are becoming commonplace across the consumer goods industry. Henkel, for example, is migrating fully to the cloud over the next several months in order to streamline its cloud-based ERP and development platform to create a “Business Technology Cloud.” And Unilever recently completed its own cloud migration, which took place over 18 months, in order to improve processes related to digital deployment and innovation.
Diageo said upgrading its infrastructure will allow them to stay close to consumers and prioritize their needs.
“The external environment is changing faster than ever, and having a strong technology core that we can leverage as priorities and consumer behaviors change will be more important than ever,” the company said.
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