JDA software implementation helps Wrigley manage its supply chain

As an iconic confections leader for more than a century, Wrigley has experienced some significant changes, including its own acquisition by Mars, in October 2008. As one of the largest food companies in the world - with $30 billion in annual revenue - Mars provided new strength to the global Wrigley organisation. The acquisition, however, also brought a new set of responsibilities for the Wrigley category management team.

“We were already expanding our business and had integrated the Lifesavers and Altoids brands into our portfolio when Wrigley was acquired by Mars,” said Mike Hettinger, Senior National Category Manager at Wrigley. “This meant integrating Mars’ Skittles and Starburst businesses into the Wrigley brand family as well since they are a natural fit with our increasing confections focus. In a short period of time, Wrigley grew from what was historically known as a world leader in gum to a confectionery company with new areas of focus.”

The brand extensions, while exciting, dramatically expanded what Wrigley was doing to track and analyse its space and shelf management initiatives. Plus, the company’s field teams needed greater visibility to manage the new product diversity. “We were using an inefficient way to load the majority of our planograms that resulted in challenges to reporting out data. In addition, we were experiencing some issues that we knew our current system could not handle,” said Hettinger. “We needed a solution that would broaden our efforts on space and shelving, ensure the integrity of our data and offer the capabilities to provide greater insights.”

Wrigley chose to implement JDA Space & Category Management solutions, which would enable the company to manage a large volume of retail planograms, fixtures, floor plans, store/cluster data, product attributes and performance information.

“The JDA team made sure we met our aggressive timeline by working with us throughout the entire implementation process. Having them physically on-site, working through the implementation, was certainly critical to our success,” added Hettinger. “It was a seamless process with the lines blurred between Wrigley’s project team and JDA’s implementation team. As a result, the implementation happened faster than we anticipated.”

According to Hettinger, one of the key factors in achieving a rapid implementation was to have JDA host the solutions. “We didn’t have to install the software, just establish an interface connection on the user PCs. Our users could log on and get right to work. JDA clearly has expertise in system administration, batch processing, data backup, remote access, security and other technical areas that we rely upon. We couldn’t have met this aggressive schedule without the managed services component,” added Hettinger.

Wrigley also took advantage of JDA Education Services’ on-site training option to speed the implementation and drive a rapid return on investment.