Big Data

Keurig Dr. Pepper’s CIO On Building A Future-Ready Beverage Giant

John Gigerich, Chief Information Officer of Keurig Dr. Pepper, oversees a vast IT landscape supporting a $15 billion revenue company with around 28,000 employees across the U.S. and international markets. In reflecting on the company’s offering and reach, Gigerich noted, “We are a complete beverage company.” He further explained that the company’s products are omnipresent across food and beverage outlets, from restaurants to airplanes. The integration has been pivotal in expanding Keurig Dr. Pepper’s reach, as the company now boasts over 45 million households with Keurig brewers together with the legacy of the oldest major soda brand, dating back to 1885. The integration of those companies began in 2018, and it presented a remarkable task and set of opportunities for Gigerich and team.

Navigating the Merger: From Infrastructure to Cybersecurity

Gigerich joined Keurig just before its merger with Dr. Pepper Snapple Group in July of 2018. As a result, six months into his tenure, he faced the initial challenge of bringing the IT infrastructures of both companies into alignment. “As with any big merger like this, there was loads to do,” he said, explaining that essential tasks included integrating email and network systems, aligning cybersecurity, and unifying corporate applications, were among the first priorities. The process, though seemingly mundane, was foundational for driving forward operational stability. “No one’s going to pay us a nickel more for our house because we have a new sewer line,” Gigerich joked, drawing a parallel to the often unseen work of merging IT systems. Nonetheless, he emphasized that resilient infrastructure and robust cybersecurity are critical to maintaining stakeholder trust and operational continuity.

Advancing the Digital Transformation

Amid the integration, Gigerich also spearheaded an ambitious digital transformation agenda. Early on, his team strategically shifted Keurig Dr. Pepper’s data and systems to the cloud, leveraging Google Cloud and Azure, while enhancing network resilience through SD-WAN implementation. The aim was to future-proof the company’s technology while optimizing for growth. “We picked things up, moved them to Google Cloud or moved them to Azure…[and] went to SD-WAN so that we had a more dynamic network,” he said, adding that these moves laid a solid foundation for future digital innovation.

This strategic pivot now supports ongoing transformation projects like the Digital Consumer Connections initiative. This effort seeks to leverage data to understand consumer preferences more intimately and deliver products more effectively to targeted demographics. “Understanding what our consumers want and need is of paramount importance,” Gigerich explained. By optimizing their marketing mix through data analysis, Keurig Dr. Pepper aims to ensure that each shelf is stocked with the right products for the right audience, which is a core driver of top-line growth.

Digital Value Chain: Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency

In addition to consumer insights, Keurig Dr. Pepper is digitizing its entire value chain, from production to point-of-sale. The company employs a two-fold approach to distribution, using both direct-store delivery and large retail partnerships. The value chain initiative targets efficiency at each stage, particularly within supply chain planning. “Our big project right now is around end-to-end planning…a multi-year process,” Gigerich noted. This long-term project is critical for achieving cost efficiencies and enhancing flexibility across the supply chain, enabling Keurig Dr. Pepper to respond swiftly to market demand shifts.

Digitized Enterprise: Supporting Employee Productivity

Gigerich’s vision also includes improving the digital employee experience. As CIO, he aims to reduce user complexity and increase productivity by considering how employees interact with various IT systems. “The miss for us, as CIOs, has been…how many of these different user experiences do they have to have on a daily basis?” he posed. By streamlining access and optimizing interfaces, Keurig Dr. Pepper hopes to boost overall efficiency and employee satisfaction.

Building a Strong Digital Foundation

Gigerich highlighted the essential role of digital foundations, which serve as a backbone to Keurig Dr. Pepper’s transformation goals. The company’s strategy relies on five foundational elements: a cloud-first approach, a data-driven orientation, strategic talent allocation, an agile framework, and an ROI-focused project execution model. An additional priority has been Keurig Dr. Pepper’s decision to avoid accumulating technical debt, opting instead to adopt SaaS solutions and cloud-based systems for new implementations. This cloud-first focus is bolstered by a strong FinOps practice that’s helped streamline costs and transition away from older, inefficient systems.

Becoming a Data-Driven Organization

Central to Keurig Dr. Pepper’s digital transformation is its focus on harnessing data to drive decision-making across the organization. Gigerich noted that data has become “the oil that lubricates everything in the business,” underscoring its critical role in achieving operational excellence. To this end, Keurig Dr. Pepper has embarked on a major overhaul of its master data infrastructure and is adopting a data product-based architecture. These changes are designed to ensure consistent, reliable data is readily available, helping eliminate situations where the validity of data is debated over the actions it should prompt. Through this architecture, Keurig Dr. Pepper seeks to improve access for teams across functions and increase trust in data quality.

Talent Optimization and the Path to Agile

Another foundational element is cultivating the right talent. In recent years, Keurig Dr. Pepper has shifted much of its technology operations in-house, where they are carefully building out areas where Keurig Dr. Pepper-specific expertise will be retained within the company, rather than outsourced. Gigerich shared that this is not a wholesale in-sourcing move but a targeted initiative to retain valuable project knowledge that would otherwise exit with contractors. Supporting these changes is Keurig Dr. Pepper’s multi-year effort to transition from a waterfall to an agile framework. Agile techniques have been increasingly adopted across teams and are projected to reach company-wide application by 2025. For Gigerich, agile represents more than methodology—it’s the foundation of a product management model that Keurig Dr. Pepper will use to unify and accelerate its business objectives.

A Relentless ROI Focus

To drive value from Keurig Dr. Pepper’s digital transformation initiatives, Gigerich and his team prioritize a rigorous ROI focus. Each project undergoes a detailed gate review process to align on anticipated value, supported by close collaboration between IT and functional leaders. Gigerich shared that the business unit proposing the project, rather than IT, presents it at the review stage, ensuring accountability for anticipated benefits. However, Gigerich acknowledges that while cost savings can be tracked easily, growth-related initiatives are more challenging to measure. For these, Keurig Dr. Pepper aims to refine its value tracking systems as the transformation progresses.

Reflecting on Keurig Dr. Pepper’s journey and his role as CIO, Gigerich recognizes that keeping pace with the rapid evolution of data-driven technologies will be an ongoing challenge. In addition to professional development, he underscores the value of learning through dialogue with other CIOs in the industry. This combination of networking, continuous learning and collaboration allows Keurig Dr. Pepper’s leadership to remain adaptive in a fast-evolving landscape. Through an ongoing commitment to digital foundations, Gigerich and his team at Keurig Dr. Pepper are building an agile, data-informed culture poised to thrive amid the accelerating pace of technological change.

Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written three bestselling books, including his latest Getting to Nimble. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.

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Adnen Hamouda

Software and web developer, network engineer, and tech blogger passionate about exploring the latest technologies and sharing insights with the community.

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