To say that today many multinationals have emerged from nothing can be a traditional argument. That is the truth for many, but there are others that, from their origins, begin as small businesses, but with a defined objective.
That is the main aspect of this small bakery that appeared in 1945 in a suburb of Mexico City and that only with four types of bread gained strength with its emblem, the white bear with a chef’s hat, apron and a bread under the arm. That image was the one that began to travel the world, as told by Juan Pajón, one of its top managers who today makes the transformation in the midst of the technology era.
Pajón, who is in charge of the pompous global director of Business Systems at Grupo Bimbo, says that, from those humble beginnings, Grupo Bimbo always wanted to innovate and has evolved to become one of the most important companies in the industry in the world, with 203 bakeries. and operations in 33 countries. Its more than 10,000 products include favorite brands like Oroweat, Sara Lee, Entenmann’s and Takis.
Hence, he points out that “innovation runs through our veins. Our history has been a truly successful one for over 77 years and we want to keep it that way. We want to continue innovating in the baking industry. With all the innovation and transformational aspects that technology has brought to the industry, we knew there was no way to continue doing it without technology. The most important thing for us is that technology alone is not enough. We need to transform our way of working. We need to impact business through technology to drive change processes and retain our people.”
Transformation
The manager assured in a recent conversation with Microsoft that “this technological transformation will put us in a position where we will be more agile. We will be able to respond to market trends and needs much faster. And, most importantly, we will work with our data, which will be ready to be consumed and transformed into business insights and insights.”
Additionally, producing millions of loaves, cakes, and snacks daily with consistently high quality requires meticulous attention to metrics and data. Therefore, a few years ago, Grupo Bimbo began working with Microsoft to make digital transformation the foundation of its business strategy. The company has adopted Microsoft Azure as its cloud provider of choice and implemented Azure IoT technology for its GB Connected solution, which collects analytics from the company’s manufacturing machines and devices in real time.
In addition, Grupo Bimbo will implement Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability in its global operations. The solution will allow you to integrate data from multiple sources across your operations and supply chain to gain a complete view of your sustainability efforts.
When asked why the multinational decided to undertake this digital transformation, and about what he hoped to change or improve and how he defines digital transformation, Juan Pajón says that “for me, digital transformation only has value if we can have a business impact on the company, to make it grow and win the battles in the market. It doesn’t just come down to automation or digitization, but there must be a business reason behind it.”
He argues that “in the coming years, we will focus on our consumer-centric ambition, and we can only achieve this if we use data – not only our own data, but also data related to social listening and the insights of our consumers. A consumer-focused strategy will be very important to us.”
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simplify life
He indicates that “we are also working on what we call the ‘obsession with the battle line.’ As part of these efforts, we are working on different aspects. It’s extremely important to us to make life easier for our frontline workers and to ensure that through technology we can help our sales organization focus on selling and serving customers, and do so much more efficiently. . And the same with our production line workers. We are also working hard to digitize their day-to-day operations.”
Regarding what these aspects are in the efforts of Grupo Bimbo’s obsession with the battle line, the senior manager assures that “one is the data. It consists of cleaning and identifying data anomalies in order to correct them much more proactively and quickly. The other is the value chain. We are working on initiatives to make production lines more efficient in our manufacturing processes and maintenance exercises.”
“Additionally -he says-, we will complement this aspect with our industrial Internet of Things (IoT) program, GB Connected, through which we are generating actions to have more information on the efficiency of the lines in real time. Everyone in the company, from the executives to the associates pulling fresh loaves out of the oven, trusts the data, giving the production of a very traditional food a wonderfully 21st century flavor.”
digital efforts
On how Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability benefits Grupo Bimbo’s digital efforts and sustainability goals, he explains that “by 2025, we want our operations to use 100% renewable electricity. By 2050, we want to become a net zero carbon emissions company. We want to make sure that our industrial operations do not affect the planet, so we will use clean energy. We are also striving to reduce food waste.”
In this same sense, he says that “sustainability was a very important aspect when we began to work more closely with Microsoft in recent years. Sustainability is not something we do just because we need to. It’s the way we do business. And I think we share a lot of those values, ambitions and goals in terms of sustainability with Microsoft.”
He assures that “we partnered with Microsoft to co-create the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solution, which is really important to us. We are in the process of adopting it for our global operations, which will help us to have control and visibility of our sustainability goals for the future.”
Likewise, when asking Pajón what have been the main challenges so far for this digital transformation, director Pajón maintains that “one of the challenges has been to ensure that we work with our change management team to achieve the successful adoption of new technologies , since, in a certain way, we need to change our way of working. We were used to working in a local world where we customized and tuned the tools. And now, in the new world of SaaS (Software as a Service), adoption is the key word. So the cultural aspect is important.”
Way of working
The manager says that “for a transformation to be successful, we need to pay attention to three fundamental aspects: people, processes and technology. It is not enough to invest in technology if we do not also invest in our people and if we do not change our way of working”.
As a culmination of his appreciations, Pajón states that “the digital transformation brings many positive things, but it also implies a new challenge in terms of cybersecurity. Before we worked mainly in offices and corporate sites, today they do it from different places like home, cafeterias and operational sites like bakeries or distribution centers more often than before. So what we now need to protect and consider is a much larger environment. We implement the Microsoft security suite and it has helped us ensure that as we grow, we do so responsibly and securely.”