5
Plants globally
Development of a Group-Wide Digitalization Strategy
A leading premium chocolate manufacturer partnered with EFESO to define and implement a comprehensive digitalization strategy across five global plants. Through strategic alignment with senior management, digital maturity assessments, and roadmap development, the company established a unified digital direction, clarified organizational responsibilities, and defined initiatives with a measurable business impact and strong ROI.
Food & Beverage
Digital & Ai
Manufacturing
Our Client
A global premium chocolate manufacturer with production sites in Europe and the USA, delivering high-quality products enjoyed worldwide.
4
Months project duration
The Challenge
The client needed a clear group-wide digitalization strategy to align its global plants and ensure consistent IT and IoT architectures. Individual sites had been driving their own digital initiatives, resulting in inefficiencies and lack of standardization.
- No unified digital strategy: Digital initiatives existed locally but not globally aligned.
- Absence of a group-wide IT/IoT architecture: Multiple systems were introduced independently across plants.
- Manual and inefficient processes: Production planning and scheduling required high manual effort.
- Limited data utilization: Connected machinery did not yet deliver measurable performance improvements.
- Inconsistent quality controls: Different plants used varying quality processes and systems.
- Bottlenecks in warehouse capacity: Frequent re-stocking was required due to limited storage.
- Need to increase capacity and efficiency: Growing global demand required optimization without expansion.
- Lack of transparency: Long lead times and poor visibility in new product pipeline
Real Results Achieved Together
The project delivered a clear, actionable digital strategy aligned with the company’s business objectives, enabling faster, more efficient, and more connected operations across all plants.
<2
Years average ROI for identified digital initiatives
5
Plants assessed for digital maturity
1
Unified group-wide digitalization roadmap
Transformation Impact
- Developed and communicated a group-wide digitalization strategy.
- Defined and prioritized digital initiatives linked to financial and strategic impact.
- Established business cases with strong ROI and measurable outcomes.
- Clarified organizational roles and future capability requirements for Industry 4.0.
Our Approach
EFESO worked closely with the client’s senior management and plant teams to define a cohesive digital roadmap and ensure alignment across all levels of the organization.
- Strategic Alignment and Planning
- Conducted strategic and financial planning with the senior management team.
- Defined key financial and strategic fields of action for the digitalization initiative.
- Assessment and Prioritization
- Assessed the digital maturity of five plants worldwide.
- Identified and prioritized high-impact digital use cases with plant management teams.
- Conducted a gap analysis of current and future capabilities in a fully digitalized environment.
- Technical and Organizational Development
- Developed concepts for required technical solutions and IT architecture.
- Created individual digital roadmaps per plant and consolidated them into a global roadmap.
- Designed the future organizational setup and defined the global digitalization team structure.
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Facing Similar Digital Transformation Challenges?
- Lacking a unified digitalization strategy across sites and functions.
- Struggling to align IT, IoT, and operational initiatives globally.
- Seeking to define high-ROI digital initiatives with measurable business impact.
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