Oracle Customer Success — The Kraft Heinz Company

The Kraft Heinz Company

The Kraft Heinz Company Implements Zero-Based Budgeting, Improves Planning Accuracy, and Reduces IT Management Costs by Nearly 5x with Cloud Solution

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When we merged with Kraft, we had to roll Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service out to more than 600 new users in less than 2 months to meet our budgeting timeframe. Oracle provided the flexibility and scalability we needed to achieve our goal.

— Julian Sherwin, Head of Zero Based Budgeting, The Kraft Heinz Company
The Kraft Heinz Company is the third-largest food and beverage company in North America and the fifth-largest in the world, with 8 $1 billion+ brands. A globally trusted producer of delicious foods, The Kraft Heinz Company provides high quality, great taste, and nutrition for all eating occasions whether at home, in restaurants, or on the go. The company’s iconic brands include Kraft, Heinz, ABC, Capri Sun, Classico, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Lunchables, Maxwell House, Ore-Ida, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Planters, Plasmon, Quero, Weight Watchers Smart Ones, and Velveeta.
 
Challenges
  • Implement a global cost-management initiative for the consumer goods company based on a zero-based budgeting approach
  • Replace an error-prone Microsoft Excel and Access-based solution that did not scale effectively to 1,500 users across 40 countries in 5 time zones
  • Improve planning and budgeting system scalability to support company growth, including growth through mergers and acquisitions, while interfacing with back-end financial management systems
  • Consolidate budgets across the entire company in real time and provide flexibility needed to enable budget owners across food product lines to make changes to budgeting processes, without affecting users
  • Support more effective decision making by enabling budget owners to access near real-time reports, rather than requiring them to wait for weekly updates that were dated and often inaccurate
  • Meet new management team expectations for implementing a new cost-effective solution in a time frame of four to five months
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Results
  • Implemented Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service across each of Kraft Heinz’s departments worldwide
  • Provided budgeting and planning process scalability as the company continues to grow—most recently through the merger of H.J. Heinz Company and Kraft Foods—integrating more than 600 new users in less than 2 months
  • Automated budget consolidation in the cloud, provided transparency into the annual budgeting process, and supported real-time planning and budgeting for the consumer goods company
  • Standardized global budgeting templates, interfaced with back-end SAP and Oracle financial management applications, and enabled budget entry in both Excel and web-based Oracle forms—ensuring ease-of-use and system acceptance for budget owners worldwide
  • Accelerated reporting, enabling users to access budget reports in near real-time, rather than waiting up to a week to view reports that were dated or inaccurate—ultimately providing budget owners with more control.
  • Provided security controls so users can only view and update the information for which they are responsible
  • Reduced IT implementation, management, and maintenance costs by a factor of nearly 5x by leveraging the cloud budgeting system
  • Completed the rapid implementation in just four months, rolling the solution out to 1,200 users across 40 countries and 5 time zones
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We needed robust functionality and a trusted track record. Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service was significantly more cost-effective and feature-rich than the solutions we evaluated from Anaplan and SAP, and it was the only option to meet our accelerated timeline.

— Julian Sherwin, Head of Zero Based Budgeting, The Kraft Heinz Company

Execution

The Kraft Heinz Company completed the rapid implementation in just 4 months—across 40 countries and 5 time zones. The process included the design phase, solution build-out, 10 days of global end-user training, system testing, and production migration.
 
“More users are moving away from other systems they previously used in favor of the Oracle solution, because they see that the functionality is so much more robust,” Sherwin said.

About The Kraft Heinz Company

Headquarters

 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Chicago, Illinois, United States

Employees

 
42,000

Annual Revenue

 
Over $5 Billion

Oracle Solutions Used

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud
Published:  Mar 21, 2016