CASE STUDY Mondelēz International
Reinventing snacking
Snacking made right through a data-driven, consumer-centric vision
3-MINUTE READ
Becoming an AI leader
It’s almost impossible to browse the grocery store snack aisle without encountering Mondelēz International’s products, whether you know it or not. The company—which empowers people to “snack right” in 150 countries—is behind the widely popular Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers and Toblerone chocolate, to name but a few of their products.
To make huge strides towards its goal to be the “leader of snacking,” Mondelēz International knew that it needed an even stronger growth strategy to keep up with customer demands. With Accenture’s help, the company developed a roadmap for a data-driven transformation to strengthen its digital core, drive growth and optimize operations.
In global large-scale enterprises, I’ve found that there is generally a trigger for change, the key is recognizing it and being able to embrace a new mindset.
Javier Polit / Former Chief Information and Digital Officer – Mondelēz International
The impetus for becoming an AI leader
Aware of the enormous potential of the data and AI to help the organization sense market changes, understand and influence its consumers and proactively adapt to emerging technologies, the company had already invested in cloud-enabled capabilities.
“The time was right because we had been preparing from a business perspective and from a technology perspective,” said Javier Polit, Former Chief Information and Digital Officer, Mondelēz International. “We had the right foundation in place.” Javier spoke with Venky Rao, Accenture’s North America Consumer Goods and Services industry lead about how Mondelēz International approached their transformation.
From the importance of talent and establishing a dynamic learning culture and organization to creating value with velocity to the six pillars of an AI strategy, Javier shared his insights on how Mondelēz International advanced their AI maturity.
Building a clear data and AI strategy
The company started its journey by studying and understanding its challenges and the opportunities arising from specific pain points. Then, it built a clear strategy and vision, and joined forces with strategic partners, including Accenture, to help it build the capabilities it needed.
As part of its data and AI strategy, the team implemented a central data analytics service to drive a holistic data-driven strategy. The team acts as a steward of data within the enterprise as well as data coming from outside the enterprise from different sources.
The team also knew that, for their long-term strategy to be sustainable, it needed people with the right skill sets, expertise and capabilities to create and sustain maximum value from the company’s data-science capabilities. Mondelēz International wanted to retain, attract and engage the right talent and provide the skills to drive success. The company didn’t want to stop with digital literacy—it wanted to drive digital fluency across the enterprise.
Transformation in any large company can only succeed if leadership effectively communicates the strategy throughout the whole organization. Mondelēz International’s key message that “data matters” and that the company “will win with data” had the support, first, of the C-Suite. The team then worked with early adopters across the organization to build broader support that others could then get behind.
A never-ending journey
As the company evolved into an AI-focused and data-driven organization with an innovative culture, it also pivoted to become a dynamic learning organization. And the company knows that the transformation journey is always ongoing—especially as new capabilities emerge. “You set a strategy and a vision, and you say, “Okay, it's a three-year horizon,” explained Polit. “I always say that after the second year, you start figuring out what your next three-year horizon is going to be. It's something that is just never done.”