PepsiAmericas: Building an Information Savvy Company

In 2009 PepsiAmericas was learning how to leverage an information backbone designed to provide information to the firm’s decision makers at all levels of the organization. The firm had built this information backbone—and the business capability to use it effectively—over an 8-year period beginning in 2001. This case describes how business and IT leaders worked together to create an information savvy organization. It describes the stream of IT investments, organizational changes, and metrics that helped PepsiAmericas evolve from a regional business that shipped truckloads of Pepsi and Mountain Dew to an enterprise that delivered hundreds of SKUs as needed to powerful national retailers. PepsiAmericas’ IT-enabled capabilities helped the firm respond to drastic market changes and enhance business competitiveness. The question PepsiAmericas management faced going forward was how to leverage its information-based business capabilities in a global market.