Molson Coors Cloud Move Adds Visibility 

Sometimes technology integration problems make one want to step back and crack open a cold one. This is much easier when you’re working IT for Molson Coors.

With a 350-year history, the Molson Coors company has seen its fair share of change in the very competitive brewery business. It’s a business where margins are razor thin, and the ability to get granular on the processes involved in brewing and delivering product can mean huge increases in the bottom line.

Recently, the company underwent a transformation to update their infrastructure and gain more visibility into its global operations. With the help of HP, Molson Coors undertook the effort of taking the substantial amount of legacy applications, data, and processes that had been established over the previous 20 years, and integrating it into a modern infrastructure that it could leverage to increase profit margins.

HP has worked to move the Molson Coors into the cloud with the aim of reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving access to some of the brewer’s finance and human resource (HR) processes and systems. Through HP’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) platform, HP says they were able to standardize Molson Coors’ HR and finance processes and applications, giving it the ability to expand into new markets more quickly and cost effectively.

Such upgrades are no small matter for the brewer. Key trends that Molson Coors faces as it moves to service an increasingly global market place include complexity and speed of business challenges. Mergers and acquisitions happen regularly in this arena, adding the the complexity of the brewing giant’s supply (and distribution chain), and B2B partner integration is an ever present challenge.

“In the evolving beer market, we look for business solutions that help keep us nimble and flexible, so that we can focus on brewing great beer brands for our consumers,” said Gavin Hattersley, chief financial officer, Molson Coors Brewing Company in a statement.

The competition in this arena will only increase over time, and companies like Molson Coors will constantly have to reinvent itself both at brand level, but also at the IT level to keep the competitive pace.