PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $86 billion in net revenue in 2022, driven by a complementary beverage and convenient foods portfolio that includes Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and SodaStream. PepsiCo’s product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including many iconic brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.
Guiding PepsiCo is their vision to Be the Global Leader in Beverages and Convenient Foods by Winning with pep+ (PepsiCo Positive). pep+ is their strategic end-to-end transformation that puts sustainability and human capital at the center of how they create value and growth by operating within planetary boundaries and inspiring positive change for planet and people.
One recent exploration was centered around a new product in the emerging Chinese market.
Successfully innovating requires an understanding of both consumers and their ambitions. The company was searching for a solution that would facilitate design innovation — communication, collaboration, and alignment during product development — across time zones and cultures. This way, PepsiCo could quickly develop new products that meet global customer demands.
3.6x faster time to market
68% of PepsiCo users agree Miro helps complete projects faster
80% of users agree Miro has helped improve work productivity
Story highlights
- PepsiCo needed remote teams to work in an agile way across the globe while using disparate tools.
- Miro provided a collaborative platform for PepsiCo to implement Design Thinking methodologies and a consistent end-to-end product innovation process, from project brief to launch.
- The new way of working in Miro allows global teams to participate in a collaborative creative process that fosters complex innovation.
Watch the video
The problem: Different tools and methodologies across distributed teams hindered innovation in a fast-paced market
PepsiCo is committed to understanding Chinese consumers so they can develop products that not only align with the company’s mission to drive positive outcomes, but also meet customer needs in an emerging market.
“Innovation is a requirement allowing businesses to thrive and survive. At PepsiCo, innovation is about reaching out to new consumers, to new occasions, white spaces, new opportunities for us to grow as a business.”
Christian Saclier, the Vice President of Design Innovation at PepsiCo
Christian Saclier, PepsiCo’s Vice President of Design Innovation, was brought on board to architect the process of introducing new products to PepsiCo’s food segment. To do so, Christian implemented Design Thinking to ensure agility and human-centricity across projects. However, in 2020, PepsiCo teams were suddenly forced to work remotely due to the global pandemic. This compounded challenges related to effectively collaborating across multiple time zones, different tools, and cultural differences on a global team.
To continue collaborating, Christian needed a way to connect hundreds of designers and cross-functional colleagues across the business to not only communicate successfully, but also to solve complex challenges and produce innovative solutions.
“Before we had Miro, nobody had an understanding of how things went from A to Z. Each team was doing it differently.“
Caroline De Diego, Senior Manager, Global Foods Marketing Innovation
The solution: One virtual space for global teams to work autonomously, in parallel
After considering a range of solutions, PepsiCo identified Miro as the best platform for their product innovation needs. With Miro, PepsiCo’s product development teams could come together in one shared virtual space to better understand their customers, and conceptualize and build on new ideas together. Through Miro’s visual workspace, they were able to create and leverage custom templates that helped scale their Design Thinking approach, which in turn increased organizational intelligence.
“Using Miro has been seamless since day one. It’s very easy to understand, very easy to use.“
Christian Saclier, the Vice President of Design Innovation at PepsiCo
Standardized end-to-end process
The Design Thinking templates in Miro helped design teams standardize a repeatable, end-to-end process. This process includes early stages like project brief, charter, and ideation. Miro also served as a space for conducting consumer validation and refinement so PepsiCo teams can make incremental improvements to their products that better meet customer needs and expectations. Compiling this information in one workspace allows them to reference data from previous stages, including user research, so they can easily iterate on developing their product strategy.
Shared source of truth
PepsiCo’s design teams utilize Miro as both a project hub for all related assets and designs, and a shared source of truth where they can easily align and have visibility into cross-functional activities. This transparency empowers teams to preserve their autonomy while helping avoid duplicate effort. Plus, it makes it easy for non-designers and stakeholders across a variety of teams — from R&D, product, and marketing — to gain a clear view of the customer experience and the product development process. This also helps stakeholders feel a sense of ownership and accountability that helps drive the success of projects.
Async collaboration
Miro enabled PepsiCo’s global teams to work around the clock; while the US teams were sleeping, their counterparts in China could see what was done on the Miro board to build off of their work. This continuous collaboration is one of the reasons PepsiCo has experienced accelerated progression and delivery of products. In fact, overall, 68% of surveyed PepsiCo users say that Miro helps them complete projects faster.
“We could work day and night through different time zones. We all looked at the same Miro boards. We had one version of the truth. It was a much more democratic creative process without slowdowns.“
Koen Burghouts, VP Innovation & Emerging Brands
Democratized ideation
Utilizing digital collaboration in Miro also allowed teams to think more dynamically and swiftly adapt to evolving market needs. The quality of conversations only continued to improve as every team member was given a shared visual space to be creative, unlocking original thinking and accelerated innovation.
The result: PepsiCo streamlines the innovation process to deliver desirable products faster
Miro has helped PepsiCo bridge the gap between ideation and innovation. It advanced the product development process to understand customer needs and more quickly design innovative products. In fact, they drastically reduced the average time to get from project brief to in-market launch, which was slashed from three years to just 10 months. By creating a blueprint for complex innovation, the design innovation team at PepsiCo led the way for other design teams and helped to streamline the process across the function.
Miro has allowed PepsiCo to more easily go from a kernel of an idea to a product on the shelf. They could research white space, create north stars, prioritize goals, ideate on concepts, and develop solutions, all within a Miro board. It’s no wonder that around 80% of PepsiCo Design Miro users agree that Miro has helped them work more productively. By introducing structure to conceptualization, Miro helps to visualize complex ideas and bring them to life.
PepsiCo’s journey with Miro serves as a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in the fast-moving world of consumer packaged goods. By creating an always-on collaboration space across worldwide teams, they can stay ahead of the curve and meet the evolving demands of their global customers.
“Miro has been magical in terms of how we develop future propositions that positively impact the lives of our consumers. Innovation is all about making the world a better place and there’s no end to it.”
Christian Saclier, the Vice President of Design Innovation at PepsiCo
Learn how you can manage all your product development workflows in one visual, collaborative space — with Miro.
