In a significant logistical feat, PepsiCo migrated 3,300 video convention rooms to Microsoft Groups Rooms and standardized its 320,000-strong workforce throughout Microsoft 365, together with Groups and Copilot.
For a world enterprise the scale of PepsiCo, operational complexity is the default state. With 320,000 workers throughout 200 nations and territories and an in depth portfolio of manufacturers like Lay’s, Doritos, and Gatorade, the potential for expertise fragmentation is of course immense. Recognizing that disparate instruments create information silos that stifle innovation, the corporate launched into an enormous digital transformation initiative to consolidate its collaboration infrastructure. The purpose was to essentially create a unified ecosystem able to supporting superior AI.
The cornerstone of this transformation was wholesale and strategic standardization on Microsoft 365. Fairly than merely deploying desktop software program, it concerned a major overhaul of the bodily workspace to bridge the hole between distant and in-office workers. This ensured that the hybrid assembly expertise remained constant, whether or not an affiliate joined from a distribution middle in Europe or from the company HQ in New York. By aligning the bodily {hardware} with the digital software program, the corporate successfully eliminated the friction that always plagues world collaboration.
PepsiCo reviews that consolidation has yielded fast and quantifiable leads to workforce conduct. By making a single “supply of fact” for comms and information, PepsiCo has achieved an adoption fee that defies typical enterprise tendencies.
In accordance with inner reviews, the corporate is now seeing every day energetic utilization of 90 % to 95 % for Microsoft 365 Copilot. This staggering determine means that by first streamlining the underlying platform, PepsiCo efficiently lowered the barrier to entry for Gen AI, permitting workers to combine these new instruments into their every day workflows with out the confusion of navigating a fractured app panorama.
Ashok Paranjothi, VP of World Office Companies at PepsiCo, commented:
“We knew that if we didn’t standardize on a collaboration platform with highly effective AI options, we’d lose floor in office AI. Our determination to maneuver to Groups meant communications and collaboration in our complete ecosystem turned a lot simpler, less complicated, and approachable for our associates.”
Why PepsiCo’s Standardization Throughout Microsoft Groups and Copilot is a Strategic Crucial for IT Leaders
For CIOs and digital transformation leaders, PepsiCo’s journey gives a number of essential classes within the hierarchy of wants for AI readiness. Arguably, the first takeaway is that infrastructure should precede innovation. Many enterprises try and layer Gen AI options on prime of a messy, fragmented information property, solely to search out that the AI can’t purpose successfully over siloed info.
PepsiCo’s success demonstrates that the “boring” work of standardization, akin to migrating recordsdata, unifying communication channels, and rationalizing vendor contracts, is definitely the high-leverage exercise that unlocks the “magic” of AI. With no unified information layer, instruments like Copilot are severely restricted. With it, they will probably turn into pressure multipliers.
A second very important lesson facilities on the interaction between safety and adoption. Safety considerations are continuously cited as the first barrier to deploying Gen AI within the enterprise. Nevertheless, by consolidating on the Microsoft stack, PepsiCo leveraged present entry controls relatively than bolt-on safety for third-party instruments.
This strategy enabled them to make use of the Microsoft 365 entry management framework (previously Azure AD) to manipulate Copilot’s entry. This illustrates that an built-in ecosystem simplifies the governance mannequin in addition to the consumer expertise, empowering IT leaders to roll out superior capabilities with the arrogance that information leakage dangers are managed by means of established protocols.
Lastly, the case examine underscores that digital transformation is finally a human problem, not a technical one. The excessive adoption charges weren’t unintentional however the results of a deliberate cultural engineering technique. Fairly than overwhelming workers with technical manuals, the change administration group targeted on behavioral nudges, akin to encouraging the straightforward behavior of scheduling all calls through Groups. By securing govt sponsorship and specializing in “people-first” enabling, they turned a software program rollout into a brand new approach of working.
“It’s no straightforward job to carry 1000’s of workers alongside on the journey to a brand new expertise they didn’t know they wanted,” mentioned Elaine Smith, Program Lead for Copilot at PepsiCo. “We began with small steps, and that’s key while you’re asking so many individuals to vary a every day behavior.”
