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- [00:05]
A
Hi, welcome to CIO Leadership Live. I'm Lucas Marion. I'm a senior writer with Computer World magazine. I'm at the CIO 100 symposium and awards show here in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I have with me Karthik Senkaran. You're the vice president of technology for global sales transformation at PepsiCo.
- [00:21]
B
That's right.
- [00:22]
A
Okay, first of all, I'm a Pepsi fiend. I always have a six pack in my refrigerator. Just saying that, just being honest and out there up front. Thank you so much for being here with me. I appreciate it. So I want to start off talking about some digital transformation challenges for you. What are some of the key digital transformation initiatives that you're leading at PepsiCo currently?
- [00:47]
B
Sure. So we have, over the past three, four years we have been working on major sales transformation initiative for North America where you have completely transformed the technology landscape for both PepsiCo Foods North America and PepsiCo Beverages North America. The challenge that I'm now tackling is how do we take these large transformation initiatives that we did in North America and then extend it to the globe. So that's the largest transformation initiative that's going on in Pepsi right now.
- [01:16]
A
Is AI helping you at all with that?
- [01:18]
B
Oh, absolutely. We have been PepsiCo leveraging a lot of the latest and greatest aid technologies, particularly in the area of coding especially we have been using Microsoft Copilot and then several other tools which has tremendously helped us with the aspect of development. But then we are also using AI in several of the other business functions. So there's been a big.
- [01:45]
A
Can you give me a specific example? Because a lot of this is, it's sort of up there in the cloud sometimes. How do you apply AI, for example, taking a bit of strategy from North America to say any of the hundred plus countries you're also operating in.
- [02:00]
B
Right. So North America, as you know, is a data rich country. And then we have also the willingness for us to spend a lot of, you know, dollars to support users here, whereas rest of the globe we are trying to be more in the self service mode. And then the, you know, dollars that we have for support are minimal. So we need to rewire our technology so that it is able to be supported at a much lower cost. So essentially we are using AI to kind of remove the cost structure out of it basically today. And for that we are rewriting a whole bunch of technologies. For example, in the US we use a lot of Apple ecosystem, iOS, Swift software, those types of things. Whereas in other countries we have to go to Android. This Conversion was very expensive because we had to rewrite the entire stack. But with AI, we are finding that we are able to do it much faster and cheaper. So that's one example.
- [03:02]
A
Okay, kind of leads into the next question. What are the biggest challenges driving digital transformation at a company of PepsiCo size?
- [03:12]
B
Yeah, one is of course, as we try to globalize the technology stack that was built for North America. Cost is one of the primary ones that we are trying to drive out with technology. Second is adoption, essentially how do we make it easy for users to adopt the technology that we are building today? And that's again something that AI is helping us with today. So rather than having to employ a lot of people to help with this change management and transformations, we are using a lot of AI now so that this adoption becomes easier. And previously we used to have only web as the interface for user interface, essentially. Now we have other options rather than just web being the only interface. We have chat interfaces, we have agentic interfaces and other things that are coming into play. That's also helping us with this change management.
- [04:10]
A
Great. How do you foster a culture of continuous innovation within your IT teams?
- [04:20]
B
We encourage a lot of experimentation. So one of the big changes now is with AI and other coding tools, experimentation has become a lot cheaper. So we are able to do a lot more experimentation. We are able to do quick experiments, fail fast, learn from IT, and then refine our solutions. So that's helping us with innovation a lot more nowadays. And that's probably one of the biggest things.
- [04:51]
A
So you set yourself up for this jive coding, live coding, you guys. So AI assisted coding.
- [04:59]
B
Yes.
- [05:01]
A
You're using it. How accurate is it? How much of the grunt work is it taking away and does it allow more creativity?
- [05:09]
B
Yes, absolutely. So in fact, we are experimenting with a lot of different AI tools nowadays. It's not one tool yet. One of the things we have done is to give a lot of options to our developers. We are every week experimenting with the newer tool. What IT has done is in some cases we have been able to cut down project timelines from five to six months to a few weeks, basically with some of these newer tools. And IT is improving every day, essentially. I would say at an average right now we are saving anywhere from 15 to 30% of developers time. I'm sorry, 15 to 30% development time in overall project, essentially. So just coding time alone is cut by at least half in many cases. The project is simple, so it has been a tremendous boost productivity at this time.
- [06:03]
A
Excellent. Where do you see gaps between business goals and your current technology capabilities.
- [06:12]
B
So the primary challenge is, like I said, user adoption of technology. And because people are used to certain ways and then now we are introducing a lot of new technologies in the mix. So how do we make sure that user adoption is easy? And that's probably the primary challenge that we are facing. So change management, again, is the primary inhibitor of change. Business process change, again, is very difficult for users to take on. I think the newer tools are really helping us in that space.
- [06:47]
A
I think with the fast pace of emerging technologies, change management is a struggle for a lot of companies. What trends in digital transformation are you most excited about for the future of consumer goods industry?
- [07:03]
B
So one is the it OT convergence. And then we are also starting to use a lot of IoT technologies nowadays in the field and in our warehouses. So this ambient IoT is another very interesting development. Ambient IoT is where we are using battery less technologies for sensors and other things in the field. In fact, PepsiCo is leading in this. We have recently formed an alliance called Ambient IoT alliance and we are partnering with several other manufacturers in this space. So there are lots of these types of newer technologies that are interesting.
- [07:40]
A
So IOT say in your manufacturing facilities, in your Shipping.
- [07:44]
B
Shipping retail. Retail, for example, how do we track our equipment in store? How do we, you know, look for promotional complaints? All those types of areas. We are using a lot of IOT today.
- [07:59]
A
Last question. I'll make it a fun one. This can be professional or personal. What's a favorite tech gadget or app that you like? Tech gadget, Tech gadget or application that you like that I like playing with?
- [08:11]
B
Yeah, yeah. So right now my most favorite things to pray around are ambient IoT devices, basically sensors and beacons and things like that that work without any batteries. So we are doing a lot of work with that.
- [08:28]
A
All right.
- [08:29]
B
And of course, all the new AI coding tools, vibe coding tools, those types.
- [08:35]
A
So you're playing with those as well?
- [08:36]
B
Absolutely. I mean, it makes your life so much interesting and easier.
- [08:40]
A
Do you find that they can go across from it to the business side of the house? Are you seeing people in marketing attempting to create their own applications?
- [08:49]
B
Absolutely. I think I'm seeing more and more of business users rather than just coming up with an idea on paper. Now they're actually able to produce things which are prototypes, real working prototypes. Because a lot of AI tools now allow you to create full working applications even if they are not ready for production, at least to conceptualize something that you are thinking. These tools are able to give you much faster leap in terms of what you can visualize, think, experiment on your own before coming to the table to say, how can I productionize this concept?
- [09:31]
A
Karthik, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. I know it's sort of a little bit on the fly, but I really do appreciate it. You just great job answering the questions and I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.
- [09:41]
B
Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.