Today, consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses continue to focus on enhancing their consumer engagement and experience through increased investments in digital strategies. The shifting demographic priorities—from baby boomers to connected millennials and generation Z—and the emergence of e-commerce businesses constitute a new power paradigm that is influencing a shift away from traditional retail.
However, even as the CPG business ecosystem undergoes this change, the mandate still, largely, is to push planned products, as opposed to pulling and aligning the right products and services for the right demographics. Digital transformation as a strategy has entered CPG business through the front door, and it is time to relook, rethink, and restructure long-held tenets and practices and align to rapidly changing market realities.
Having roots in the CPG business from very early days, Wipro is a trusted business-transformation partner for several iconic, new-age CPG brands across the globe. With a track record of enabling business growth for its clients and a strong portfolio of service offerings fueled by its clients’ end-consumer needs, Wipro helps clients build great brands by connecting better with their customers in this digital world.
One such strong partnership Wipro has is with Kellogg, a company known for its breakfast cereals. Rice Krispies were introduced to the market in 1928. The cereal—known for its mascots, Snap, Crackle, and Pop—competed with Wheaties, which General Mills had released in 1924. In those days, there were few breakfast options, and in the following decades, consumer-goods companies enjoyed strong brand loyalty. Most consumers became repeat customers. But in today’s world of endless options, instant feedback, digital engagement, and changes in consumer behavior, companies such as Kellogg are cognizant of the fact that they are competing in a new environment—one in which brand loyalty means less and only the strong survive.
Wipro works closely with Genaro Cardenas, IT director of global enterprise performance for Kellogg, to assist in key supply-chain initiatives as the multinational food manufacturing company seeks to harmonize and standardize processes and functionalities across the globe.
“Wipro has been instrumental in the areas of order-to-cash process automation for US and Europe, leveraging a CRM software,” Cardenas says. “In addition, Wipro and Kellogg created a global security factory that enabled Kellogg to improve the delivery to market on security changes across the globe. Wipro also enabled the electronic data interchange and order management process to allow Kellogg to quickly respond to customers’ new requests.”
By combining digital strategy, customer-centric design, advanced analytics, and a product-engineering approach, Wipro helps clients such as Kellogg create successful and adaptive businesses. Wipro’s Consumer Goods practice helps the company build great brands and reengineer how it connects its brands to its consumers by moving ahead from insight
to foresight.
Wipro is now changing how Kellogg does business by giving Cardenas and other leaders the ability to use new information to make better decisions and respond to situations much faster than ever before. As the partnership matures, Wipro is looking for newer ways to help Kellogg achieve its goals. “We see this as a collaboration,” says Ashwin Bhatia, vice president and global head of CPG Industries at Wipro Ltd. “Our job is to get each partner where they
want to go.”
Together, Wipro and Kellogg aim to leverage technology to successfully navigate the dynamic industry of consumer goods.
