Independent Research Shows Higher Revenues and Profits for Food & Beverage Companies Following Digital Transformation

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — A new IDC study shows a material correlation between investments in digital transformation and increased revenues and profits. In the research, which was conducted between July and August 2021, food and beverage companies that implemented digital transformation saw both revenue and profit increase 5.6% over the past 12 months. Companies that had not invested in digital transformation saw much lower levels of increase at only 1.2% and 1.6% revenue and profit growth, respectively. The study, which was sponsored by Aptean, included 711 respondents from companies in five different sub-segments of the food and beverage industry located across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Full study findings are in a new IDC whitepaper, Global Food and Beverage Industry Trends and Strategic Insights 2021, which will be released today.

In addition to revenue and profit gains, 80% of study respondents also reported improvements in every key performance indicator (KPI) measured from equipment utilization to food safety performance following digital transformation. Importantly, while the study showed that digital transformation efforts overwhelmingly led to KPI improvements across the business, food and beverage companies using cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, specifically, displayed as much as a 15 percentage point improvement gain in critical performance measures.

“Inquiries that IDC gets regarding cloud systems have shifted dramatically from total-cost-of-ownership five years ago to being able to take advantage and drive business results from newer functionality and technology today,” said Kevin Prouty, group vice president for IDC energy and manufacturing insights. “While concerns about ongoing supply chain disruptions and volatility in both supply and demand featured strongly in respondents’ concerns, it’s the reported performance differences between those firms that have chosen to act, rather than wait, on digital transformation that really stood out in this research.”

In addition to the information on trends in digital transformation, the research also explored:

• Likely impacts and top threats to the food and beverage industry over the next five years.
• The changing role in food companies of sustainability as it moves from being an important idea to an operational driver.
• Differing perspectives between the C-suite, line of business and IT professionals in terms of key performance drivers.