Hershey Bolsters Go-To-Market Strategy: Investments in Demand Planning, Consumer Insights, and Media
- Consumer Goods & Services
Fallon Wolken
- 0
- 4 minutes read
Two initiatives currently account for 15% to 20% of Hershey’s digital transformation savings.
The Hershey Company is undergoing continued digital enhancements supported by an ERP implementation to better meet consumer needs.
During the recent CAGNY conference, Steve Voskuil, SVP and CFO of Hershey, shared that 95% of its global business is on one instance of the new ERP platform and is already seeing benefits such as accelerated innovation.
Building off of that, Hershey is implementing integrated demand planning to “tie the demand signal on one side to the supply chain response and fulfillment response on the other side.” To do so, it has partnered with Kinaxis, which uses machine learning, data, and AI to make real-time adjustments to manufacturing and supply chain operations depending on demand.
As part of these efforts, the company has looked to gain a better understanding of consumer behavior, using shopping behavior analysis and promotion feedback and intersecting the data streams to inform customer investment and promotional dollar strategies. The proprietary solution, built with an outside partner, kicked off last year and is currently active in 40% of the company’s U.S. portfolio with continued plans for expansion, Voskuil said.
These two initiatives, led by IT leader Gene Kholodenko, currently account for 15% to 20% of Hershey’s digital transformation savings and work in tandem to build supply chain resiliency to drive new efficiencies.
