Coca-Cola Amatil Unifies Business with IBM Cloud Hub in Sydney

SYDNEY, April 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has signed a five-year multimillion dollar cloud agreement with Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA). The cloud project will streamline CCA's operations and processes across the South Pacific region and is expected to drive significant operational costs out of the business.

As the bottler and distributor of one of the world's most iconic brands, CCA operates in six countries including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Samoa. Australia and Indonesia will be the first countries to use the IBM cloud platform to optimise and streamline CCA's order management and distribution processes; increase operational efficiencies; and deliver consistent and exceptional quality of customer experience across the two geographies.  

"We have a complex distribution network which requires our systems to be very efficient," explains CCA's CIO Barry Simpson. "Indonesia is a vastly different market to Australia, as it has a more diverse  trade to support across both modern and traditional channels.    By using a common cloud platform across Australia and Indonesia, we will be able standardize and automate our operations and bring a consistent level of efficiency to our Indonesian business.

"Importantly, this will enable us to focus on growing our market share in Indonesia - which is a major opportunity for us in 2014," said Barry.

Under the agreement, IBM will manage CCA's mission-critical SAP infrastructure in a cloud environment hosted in IBM's data centre in Sydney, Australia, which will eventually act as a cloud hub for the rest of CCA's South Pacific operations. 

"CCA's plans to have Sydney serve as a cloud hub for its entire South Pacific footprint via IBM's cloud platform will bring enhanced operational efficiency to its entire organization," said Grant Thomson, Cloud Business Leader, IBM.  "CCA will be able to leverage best-practice processes from its Australian operation and apply them to the rest of the South Pacific region."

"CCA is keeping its IT operations in Australia to service its South Pacific operations, and in the process improve efficiency - this is an excellent example of how to leverage the power and flexibility of cloud computing," said Grant.

About IBM Cloud Computing
Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 15 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more the 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud.  IBM expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.  Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

About Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA)
An ASX Top 30 listed company, CCA is one of Australia's largest premium branded beverage and food companies and one of the world's top five Coca-Cola bottlers with territories in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. CCA's diversified portfolio of products includes the iconic Coca-Cola brands, and Cascade adult soft drinks, Kirks soft drinks, Mount Franklin and Pump spring water, Powerade sports and Mother energy drinks, Goulburn Valley fruit juices, Nestea iced tea, Grinders coffee, tea and SPC Ardmona and Goulburn Valley packaged ready to eat fruit and vegetable products.

CCA manufactures, sells and distributes a portfolio of premium alcohol beverages, including the Beam Global brands, as well as Molson Coors' Blue Moon and Coors beers, The Boston Beer Company's Samuel Adams and Rekorderlig Cider. The Australian Beer Company, CCA's joint venture with Casella, produces ARVO, Alehouse beers and Pressman's Australian Cider. CCA acquired the Fiji Brewery and distillery in Fiji and the Vailima Brewery in Samoa in 2012.

Media Contact:
Mike Azzi
IBM Communications
914-766-1561
[email protected]

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SOURCE IBM