Coca Cola European Partners : Lessons from Silicon Valley

We've got ambitious plans to grow at Coca-Cola European Partners and digital is at the heart of that. But everyone says that, right?

We have been reshaping our digital agenda and programme to build on the good work done so far and give it even more momentum. I recently went to Silicon Valley on a fact-finding mission to meet with some of the biggest names in technology like Google and Facebook. I wanted to understand how these massive tech giants thought about digital in their own companies and what trends are coming round the corner. We also met with some venture capitalists to see how they evaluated digital ideas.

These companies make their money from technology, so it's no surprise that digital is at the core of what they do. It's part of every plan and factored into every educated guess about what will happen in the future. They don't do it because it is trendy - they do it because it delivers genuine results. It is their business.

This is the digital model we are pursuing for CCEP. Digital is baked into our strategy - not separate to it and we'll only invest where it can deliver the biggest benefit to our customers, our people and our business.

The most obvious area, and the one we'll be focusing on first, is how digital can support our growth plans. We need to be world-class at serving our customers and digital tools - like Right Execution Daily - make it simpler and quicker to do this.

There are also huge opportunities in supply chain to get our products from our sites to customers the moment they need them, by better understanding supply chain data and making the most of connected devices.

Bringing in social tools for employees and interacting with customers and consumers on platforms like Salesforce, Facebook and others is also vital. Millennials use these services every day in their personal life and increasingly expect them in their professional life too so we need to cater for those expectations.

We are going to take a long-term view of digital at CCEP so we are ready to make the most of the next technological leap.

We have many ideas to evaluate, but we are clear on where we want to be - and building relationships with leading tech companies like we did on the trip to California can only help us get there quicker.

Peter Brickley

Chief Information Officer