The Challenge
“We sell our products through a combination of traditional sales channels, like buffets and local stores, as well as larger supermarkets like Migros and Carrefour. We also use marketing campaigns and promotions to drive sales and offer discounts to customers,” explains Selcuk Ergul. “Our field sales teams use marketing campaigns and promotions to drive sales and offer discounts to customers. These campaigns might include product placement in supermarkets for a specific period and discounts on the products sold during that time.”
He continues adding: “We use the terms “on-ticket” and “off-ticket” to refer to different ways of applying discounts in contracts with supermarkets. “On-ticket” means the discount is reflected on the invoice that the company sends to the supermarket. In contrast “off-ticket” means that the company does not reflect the discount on the invoice and instead asks the supermarket to send an invoice to cover the discount. Contracts can sometimes include both on-ticket and off-ticket discounts, and the invoicing process can become more complex when it is based on consumer spending rather than being invoiced upfront.”
Ergul recalls, “We relied on a paper-based system for managing customer discounts and promotions. This system lacked standardisation and a formal approval process, making it difficult to control if the discounts offered were above strategically defined thresholds or if the marketing budget was being exceeded. The data was manually entered into a couple of systems, which meant that it was not immediately available, and there was no way to take action if something required attention.”
Digital Transformation Story
The paper-based and Excel-based processes left PepsiCo vulnerable to budgeting errors and made it difficult to control marketing budgets and ensure that money was being spent on the right campaigns. This prompted the company to search for a more standardised and automated solution to improve the process and help business units manage their budgets more effectively.
“We had a few options other than PaperWorkBPM for improving the management of marketing campaigns and budgets, including making improvements to the existing Oracle ERP or adding new functionalities to the PepPocket field sales software. These platforms were open to custom development and were considered to be excellent platforms, but we needed to determine whether they were the best fit for the purpose. After consulting with global IT and IT teams in other countries, a different system was recommended that was already used in some countries for the same purpose. However, the budget required for this system was much higher than what we had available.” explains Ergul.
Ergul continues, adding: “When we compared the functionalities, budget requirements and project timelines, PaperWorkBPM was the clear winner. The PaperWorkBPM team convinced us that they could deliver the solution within our desired timeframe and budget, which was significantly lower than the budget proposed by global IT for the implementation of another platform.”
“The team at PaperWorkBPM worked closely with the business analysts at your company to gather requirements for the project,” explains Canan Unverdi, senior project manager for PaperWorkBPM. “We also involved the business units in the design process to understand their expectations better and outlined the user interfaces and workflows within the process. The solution needed to integrate with several systems, including the local HR system, electronic invoice system, Oracle ERP, and PepPocket field sales system. The team also created a system architecture document for the technical teams.”
After automating and integrating the processes on the PaperWorkBPM platform, PepsiCo gained total control of the conventional channels’ marketing budget. Alongside budget control, PepsiCo has access to crucial marketing activity and sales data to analyse the profitability and efficiency of the marketing campaigns.
The access to critical marketing and sales data provided by the PaperWorkBPM platform has made it easier for PepsiCo to make more informed decisions about its marketing activities. “We can now analyse the profitability of marketing activities and use this data to plan more effective campaigns. The platform also helps us control our marketing budget by providing insights into marketing activities’ type, timing, duration, and profitability.”, explains Ergul.
Moreover, he continues, “automating and integrating the invoice processing system with the PaperWorkBPM platform has helped us eliminate errors and delays. The PaperWorkBPM platform automatically captures invoices, assign them to activities, gets them approved, and sends them to the Oracle ERP system.”
He concludes, adding: “the project to automate and integrate marketing campaign management and invoice processing with the PaperWorkBPM platform was a success and recognised with an award as the PepsiCo Best of IT in 200 countries. This achievement is a testament to the hard work and collaboration of the teams.”