Digital Transformation at Nestlé is about Business Outcomes

ARC Advisory Group has been tracking the digital transformation initiatives of companies by conducting surveys and analyses for the last 5-7 years. All this information has been collated, and the Top 25 global industrial digital transformation leaders, across multiple industries and geographies, have been identified. ARC’s Industrial Digital Transformation Top 25 report highlights companies that are successfully integrating digital technology into all areas of business, fundamentally changing the way they operate and deliver value to their customers. They share a common thread of leveraging digital technologies to transform business capabilities and outcomes, giving them a competitive advantage during challenging global circumstances.

The global business landscape has gone through immense turbulence and uncertainty in the last two years. The pandemic catalyzed companies to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and adapt to the constantly changing demands with agility. It is evident that only companies that deployed digital transformation initiatives were able to thrive and survive. Today, digital transformation has emerged as the focal point of all business-related conversations and is expediting the ability for physical and organizational boundaries to be broken to engage a real-time workforce, connect teams, and drive collaboration.  While some shifted their digital transformation efforts during the pandemic, all had some level of prior preparation and have an eye toward the future.

For this research, digital transformation has been defined as: “The integration of digital technology into all areas of business, fundamentally changing the way companies operate and deliver value to customers. The organization is typically charged to innovate and improve across multiple dimensions such as: digital/disruptive technologies, culture and leadership, operational agility, workforce engagement, customer experience, environmental, social and governance, and competitive performance.”

This is the tenth in a series of blogs on the leaders in the digital transformation space.

Nestlé

Digitalization covers all aspects of Nestle’s business from internal organization to external engagements. The company is advancing as a digitally enabled data powered business. Digital transformation is business-led and consumer-centric. This includes using analytics, automation (all factories are equipped with collaborative robots), artificial intelligence, and e-business. The IT organization is part of the digital transformation program delivering value to the business, rather than simply IT systems and services that meet operational targets. Nestle’s digital transformation strategy is known as Vision2Life and has four key priorities: bring value to the people who receive IT services; operate as one global IT team but with local expertise; interlock product management with business stakeholders; and make IT a technology differentiator not just a provider. Their transformation exists in several ways including leadership, culture, technology, and ESG. Everyone from procurement, manufacturing, sales, and marketing are involved. Nestle supports over 1 million transactions a day across thousands of applications globally and locally. Digital transformation at Nestle is about business outcomes: increasing capacity, decreasing cost, increasing product innovation and availability of goods. Empowering people with information to make faster decisions is at the core of Nestle’s culture.

Next Step

ARC will continue its research in all areas related to digital transformation to learn more about what is working – and what isn’t – as companies pursue their unique digital transformation activities. The Industrial Digital Transformation Top 25 report will be published annually. With this being the first issue, your feedback is very important to investigate new approaches and measures to adjust our methodology, identify successful digital transformation initiatives, and help the industry as a whole digitally transform. This report is the fruition of an idea that matured over several years, spurred on by the many experiences with end users, their challenges, and research by ARC team members. To download the final report, please click here.