(bright music)
-: Hi, Ronald.
Well, thank you very much
for having us in this beautiful building at Heineken
and thanks for
sharing some perspective on Heineken's data and AI journey.
First, for the very few who don't know Heineken,
can you tell us a little bit about the company's history?
-: We are a 160-year-old startup,
still family-controlled, so a proud and independent brewer,
and I think everybody will know us for the Heineken brand,
but actually we have over 400 brands
that we sell in pretty much every country in the world.
-: Why is data
and AI critical for a consumer goods company like Heineken?
-: I think every CPG has always tried to find the balance
between experience, a bit of intuition,
and a bit of market data to take the right decisions.
But the amount of data nowadays available is just crazy.
I think it was 2001,
over 20 years ago, when the word "big data" was
invented by Garner.
But the real explosion of data, at least
for a company like Heineken, came maybe in the last
decade, last five years.
And not only when large companies start to do ERP
with internal data, but with IoT connecting,
getting data from cash registers,
getting data from our fridges in the marketplace.
We have almost 200 billion data elements streaming out
of our manufacturing footprint,
out of machines into our own cloud.
So there's so much data available,
and now with AI, it is not just data;
we can create actionable insights.
-: Can you tell us a little bit more about that journey,
but also about where you have seen the most
value-creating opportunities?
-: We have a very, very fragmented tech landscape
still, ripping out an old landscape and replacing it,
but that takes, well, six, seven, eight years,
and we do not have the time.
So we try to find a way to accelerate,
to fast-track data and AI.
And the second thing is, it's also about prioritization.
You need to be deliberate.
We did a ton of experimentation
and also with help from BCG, but let's prioritize
where the key value buckets and where can we scale?
So what are the five, six big things that we now do
that we really try to drive hard across Heineken?
-: What would be the top things where you've seen
disproportionate value creation?
-: Where we see the biggest opportunity
and that we are pursuing hard is one,
around revenue management.
So things like promo AI, how do you optimize your promos,
get better return on investments,
and where do you invest?
Number two for us, very important, is marketing mix,
actually commercial mix optimization.
So we spend billions, as you can imagine,
on all our beautiful brands, which is super complex.
There's a lot of touch points, a lot of brands,
a lot of regions or provinces.
The third big one is around sales execution.
That is from promo recommendation to routing
and scripting of our sales reps, helping them
to have good conversations online and offline.
And of course also big is manufacturing.
It is how we optimize machines and packaging lines
and even complete brewers.
And that's logical, right?
It is around sales, it's around marketing,
it's around revenue, it's around manufacturing.
That's also where a lot
of companies have their biggest cost base or revenue base.
-: With generative AI, there's been a very, very big wave
of interest, investments, a new wave of experimentation.
What do you see in the let's say medium term
of your journey when it comes to AI?
-: For us, the Holy Grail will be also
in the creative side of things.
The brand building, even films,
digital assets online, going from maybe 50 assets
that we can bring today to life on Formula One
in a weekend to thousands.
At the same time, I really see a big step
where GenAI will drive change.
(bright music)