Raising a glass to M&A success

Multinational brewer Carlsberg wanted to acquire high-quality craft and specialty beers and nonalcoholic brands to complement its vast selection of established favorites. Carlsberg knew mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures required extensive work to integrate IT, sales, marketing, production and distribution—major obstacles that could tank any deal. A joint venture between Carlsberg’s UK business and a UK independent brewer represented a major opportunity, but Carlsberg first needed to adapt its SAP platform and build systems for the endeavor to succeed. Thanks to previous work on Carlsberg’s IT transformation, Accenture was able to quickly get up to speed and provide the needed expertise to give the seal of approval.

Accenture’s cross-functional M&A team ensured the joint venture wouldn’t fall flat. Accenture’s holistic approach enabled Carlsberg to reconfigure its SAP platform for the joint venture, putting finance, human resources, warehousing and logistics onto one screen. The team created a platform fit for global production and distribution by capitalizing on Carlsberg’s current applications—SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO) for supply chain planning and SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for sales, marketing and customer service. Carlsberg and Accenture also partnered to train Carlsberg’s IT people on the joint venture’s new IT system and ensure the project’s ultimate success.

Despite other transformational work at Carlsberg and the pandemic lockdown, it took just five short months to finalize the deal. The joint venture helped to diversify Carlsberg’s wide selection of international, national and regional beer brands and allowed the brewer to tap into its partner’s extensive pub, retail and export markets. By partnering with Accenture, the joint venture is on track to result in significant and potent annual cost benefits related to reduced overhead, brewery and logistics efficiencies and procurement savings. And with Carlsberg’s focus away from IT implementation and integration, the brewer can better devote its time and resources to crafting award-winning beers.