Transformation Realized: how a global beverage company adopted ... - Ernst & Young

Identifying and overcoming challenges

The digital transformation strategy faced external and internal challenges.

Being in the alcohol industry in India is tricky. It is extremely volatile as it is affected by various market conditions, explained Anupam Bhatnagar, Partner, Technology Consulting, EY India. Companies must comply with very specific regulations, which change across states. The route to market is not static as it changes with the change in policy. As a result, the organization and its entire supply chain have to be ready to respond to any change. Moreover, manufacturing and distribution are expensive, forming the core costs for an alcohol company.

As the transformation cut across the organization in 28 markets in the country, an added challenge was understanding market exceptions and defining a process that would be uniform.

EY designed a multi-pronged approach. One part of the approach was analyzing KPIs, data, and processes to determine their function today versus what it needs to be in the future. The scope of the transformation was large, touching all functions across the organization.

However, for the transformation to work, the organization’s employees had to be in line with the goals. To achieve this, the company identified process champions. A governance framework was built to track and monitor processes. More than 250 employees were upskilled so that the change proves effective for the long term.

The cornerstones of the digital strategy were data, people, and technology, but the approach was to go step by step and team by team. It started with transformation in the finance function. The planning process was transformed with encouraging results. Automation led to high levels of adoption and efficacy, saving 500 man-days of planning processes. The supply chain operations underwent an end-to-end transformation, from demand planning to logistics planning.

The staggered approach of rolling out solutions and working back with the stakeholders helped bring in changes that were pragmatic and would have a long-term impact.

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