Case Study: Frucor Suntory increases staff productivity through streamlining solutions

Drinks manufacturer Frucor Suntory, the corporation behind V Energy and Ribena, removed repetitive tasks and streamlined its processes to increase productivity and grow revenue.

Speaking exclusively to Digital Nation, Barbara Ciancio, head of Digital IT Solutions at Frucor Suntory said as the company transitions to becoming Frucor Suntory Oceania they needed to streamline their siloed systems.

Ciancio said since day one their core issue was how can they use time more efficiently and remove the repetitive tasks that are not helping the business create and grow relationships with customers.

“Our field team had to spend a lot of time trying to collect from different applications, trying to make sense of a lot of information that they had,” she said.

“This was just when we were about to embark on the replacement of S/4HANA, the technical migration of the core. This was the perfect opportunity to make the most of that new platform and create a smart solution with new technology.”

To bring together these siloed applications, Frucor Suntory looked to its technology partner of 20 years, SAP.

Implementing the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), the drinks manufacturer wanted to use the strong foundations it had, but tailor the experience.

“We are an innovative company that creates drinks but we want to translate that to our customers. It became how can we tailor the experience that we want to have with our customers, and the use of SAP and BTP became the natural answer,” Ciancio said.  

“We could leverage all the existing investment, logic and systems but with a fresh look and bring in simplicity.”

Since going live with the platform at the end of 2022, the organisation has driven a 13 percent increase in staff productivity measured by sales call time saved as a result of a more simplified and guided process.

According to Frucor Suntory, access to an intuitive recommendation engine, MySH, means staff now receive sales suggestions for their customers, including for new products based on their preferences or alternatives if a product is out of stock, which has helped to grow its customers’ basket size and supported a 3 percent increase in sales revenue.

“MySH is a one-stop shop toolset for sales, everything that a sales team needs to create business and have a relationship with customers. You can go out in real-time or you can go work offline e we have people everywhere in the country,” she said.

When building the platform, Frucor Suntory looked to get feedback from customers who were going to be impacted by this platform.

“What we did was ask customers and our people, what is it that they see out there and that we should be creating? They can see that the recommendations actually work because when we grow revenue it means we are growing their businesses, it's a win-win,” Ciancio explained.

“They can see transparency, so they can see that every promotion or any every product, anything that is relevant for them. It is another toolset that is helping, building and strengthening that relationship that we are proud of at Frucor Suntory.”

Ciancio highlighted the importance of empowering teams and people to be a part of the solution.

“I'm a technologist, but I don't know what is best for [our customers]. Creating the environment, so customers, people from back office people in the field have very different perspectives, and they see things in a different ways. Bringing them and empowering them to be part of the solution is key,” she ended.

Frucor Suntory manufactures, markets and distributes drinks including V Energy, Suntory Boss Coffee, Ribena, Lucozade and Maximus.