Diageo puts IT at centre of sales and marketing efforts

Diageo drinks to IT success

Drinks giant Diageo is going live with a new digital marketing system next month as part of a drive to increase IT’s engagement with sales and marketing activities.

The firm is also looking to use social networking tools to support its sales teams while trimming costs through short-term strategies and reviewing outsourcing arrangements.

Despite a company-wide restructuring programme that aims to deliver £100m in savings, marketing and sales systems developed in partnership with IT - aimed at maximising customer engagement and revenue - will remain a priority, according to Diageo chief information officer Brian Franz.

“Having agile and flexible digital marketing operations is the question; the answer is to have a platform that allows internal teams and external agencies and partners to work on campaigns without restrictions and drive value,” he told delegates at the Forrester IT Forum in Berlin today.

Diageo is using social networking to support its marketing department on global co-ordinated campaigns, such as a promotion for the 250th anniversary of Guinness beer.

Other forthcoming project milestones will take place in the supply chain – an area the company has been heavily investing in – and in tools to improve internal working processes.

At the same time, Diageo has been adjusting its third-party relationships – the company’s IT function is 70 per cent outsourced – and creating a “healthy tension” between partners to get best value, said Franz.

“We have not been shy about telling our partners about what we need to achieve,” he said.

“We have been multisourcing and trying to get more value by looking at things like uptime and availability of service, but that’s a normal thing to do, everybody does it. The difference at Diageo is that we are using a collaborative approach to generate the lofty cost reductions and efficiencies we are looking to get.”

Franz said that part of his vendor management strategy also includes shortening contract periods and building in mechanisms to move from one supplier to another with ease.

“You don’t want to be too tight with vendors,” he said.