IBM Helps Kraft Foods Deliver Smarter Service Across Central And Eastern Europe, Middle East And Africa

PRAGUE, Dec. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Kraft Foods (part of the Mondelez International group of companies) today announced the extension of their engagement until September 2015 to continue helping Kraft in their strategy of implementing three SAP instances globally in three years. This includes the roll-out of a corporate template to harmonize business process across their Developing Markets in CEE and MEA.

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This extension marks the successful completion of the initial roll outs in Central Europe and Russia. The next project, Catalyst CEEMA Wave 4, is now in progress, covering an additional 11 countries in Eastern & South East Europe, Middle East and Northern Africa, with a planned go-live in May 2013. With the completion of the program in 2014, 22 countries in the CEE & MEA region will be operating on a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, alongside their EU counterparts.

"Our strategic engagement with IBM has helped Kraft Foods implement harmonized and integrated business processes across the EMEA region and at the same time, complete the integration of key acquisitions by Kraft. Despite the complexity faced and the number of countries and people involved in the Catalyst program, we have managed to adopt a genuine 'one team' approach and the extension of our engagement is a testimony to the success we have achieved together,"  Bernd Ruschmeyer, IS Director Catalyst Program, Kraft Foods CEEMA.

The significance of the project was also recognized at the SAP CEE Quality Awards Ceremony 2012 on October 25th in Prague, where Kraft Foods was announced the Gold Winner in the Large Implementation category.

"Our ability to provide the best professional services helps Kraft build borderless operations so they can deliver products in smarter ways to their customers," said Vladimir Seibert, CEEMA Program Delivery Lead, IBM. "One of the key enablers to this long-term cooperation is our extensive ERP experience, capabilities and shared commitment to working collaboratively. This positions us well to continue delivering results that will help Kraft take on new business challenges and opportunities for growth."

IBM has played a key strategic partner role in helping Kraft successfully deliver their multi-year program, providing the know-how and the expertise needed, bringing together functional and technical experts from across the globe. IBM's ability to retain a core team of experts for Kraft, over an extended period of time, and to rotate these individuals through the different phases/projects in the program, has ensured maximum knowledge sharing, increased control over the template system and a very high standard of delivery excellence.

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