Mourad Ajarti, Group CIO, Coca-Cola HBC, presented an insightful session at PhotonWorld 2020 where he discussed how digital helped them successfully navigate through tough times. He shared his experiences on Coca-Cola HBC’s B2B platform remodel project to include features that meet the rapidly evolving customer expectations.
Coca-Cola HBC successfully relaunches B2B platform
Transforming an ordering platform into a holistic customer portal
Mourad Ajarti, Group CIO, Coca-Cola HBC, was one of the esteemed speakers at Photon's invitation-only event for senior executives, PhotonWorld 2020. He discussed how COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation at Coca-Cola HBC and how they worked with Photon to transform their B2B platform into a customer-centric eShop.
Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company is a strategic bottling partner of the Coca-Cola Company. They are one of the world's largest anchor bottlers with operations in 28 countries spanning 3 continents and generating revenues of more than €7 billion.
Coca-Cola HBC’s robust digitization strategy—based on the three pillars of customer-centricity, employee experience, and operational productivity—has been a clear accelerator of growth over the past few years. With COVID-19 disrupting operations worldwide, Coca-Cola HBC sought to accelerate the digital transformation initiatives of all their B2B and D2C solutions and platforms. The ultimate goal was to transform a functional ordering platform into a holistic customer portal for business owners who wish to order regularly on the fly.
To achieve this goal, they gathered feedback from 400 different customers and compared their platform with the best B2B solutions worldwide. The insights were incorporated into a model mobile UI/UX design. A new platform design and system architecture were created to separate the customer-facing layer from the backend system and thereby gain the agility to employ new functionalities. Photon contributed to the project by leading the design approach and applying best practices to build seamless, best-in-class user experiences while accommodating business needs.
“Photon has been our partner in this important platform relaunch. Their knowledge and methodology have really impressed us,” said Mourad Ajarti at PhotonWorld 2020.
"We appreciate the added value that Photon has brought by creating scope for future upgrades without any impact on the rest of the platform. This will help us gain a lot of advantages from a technical standpoint," he added.
Group CIO Mourad Ajarti discusses how COVID-19 has disrupted supply chains worldwide and how Coca-Cola HBC addressed these challenges with a robust digitization strategy:
To tackle the challenges of sudden disruptions in the supply chain, Coca-Cola HBC plans to connect all the elements of manufacturing into an integrated digital platform that enables line monitoring, energy monitoring, predictive maintenance, and smart alerts with advanced analytics. Along with plans for warehouse automation, they are also bringing real-time transportation tracking to provide customers with updates on the expected time of arrivals.
“Real-time customer order and delivery monitoring ensure customers are confident that they will have the right drink, in the right pack, in the right place,” says Mourad Ajarti.
Photon’s supply chain digital transformation initiatives help enterprises respond to customer demands, reduce lead time, increase asset utilization, and minimize costs. We leverage emerging technologies—such as automation, conversational interfaces, AI, and the Internet-of-Things (IoT)—to create optimal supply chain processes that adapt to new market needs.
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“With major shifts in manufacturing and logistic processes worldwide, supply chain digitization has become imperative in the New Normal. Disruptive technologies such as IoT, robotics, advanced data analytics, and automation are transforming supply chain processes, making them more efficient, agile, and customer-focused.”
Mukund Balasubramanian
CTO, Co-Founder at PHOTON
