Confectionary and beverage company to deploy an integrated portfolio management initiative aimed at increasing growth from innovation
Minneapolis and London — March 9, 2005 — Cadbury Schweppes, a leading global confectionary and beverage company, said this week it has selected Sopheon's Accolade portfolio and process management system to enhance a company-wide integrated portfolio management initiative aimed at increasing growth from innovation.
The Accolade deployment spans 45 countries and includes 2,400 users in product development, marketing and commercial strategy. It encompasses all five of Cadbury's operating regions, specifically Americas Beverages; Americas Confectionery; Europe, Middle East and Africa; European Beverages; and Asia Pacific.
Cadbury Schweppes employs well over 50,000 people and has an impressive list of popular brand name products, including Cadbury, Schweppes, Halls, Trident, Dr Pepper, Snapple, Trebor and Dentyne. Sopheon's Accolade will be used both to support product portfolio management and to automate and manage the company's implementation of Stage-Gate, a product development process methodology. The software system will serve as a central repository for product information within business units and across the company. Cadbury Schweppes said it chose Accolade because of its ease-of-use, speed and ease of deployment, portfolio decision-support capabilities, and overall cost-effectiveness.
According to Christine Connelly, chief information officer at Cadbury Schweppes, the company's stature as a leading innovator reaches back over 200 years. "We are determined that this commitment to innovation will be as much a part of our future as it has been our past," she said. "To maintain our market-leading position, we have outlined an organic growth strategy that relies upon our ability to innovate well and achieve high levels of return on our innovation investments. Sopheon's Accolade will give us the process uniformity and performance consistency we need to enable the sharing of knowledge and expertise across a common process and system platform, ensuring faster time-to-market with winning products."
