Clorox Completes U.S, Canada ERP Upgrade
The Clorox Co. has completed the rollout of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in both the U.S. and Canada.
The company first launched the initiative five years ago, spending $580 million to overhaul order management and manufacturing capabilities through a new, SAP-powered ERP system.
The effort included educating more than 5,000 team members on the new platform (with over 38,000 hours of training) and onboarding across 21 manufacturing plants.
Steve Keil, director, program management at Clorox, said the upgrade will allow teams across finance, supply chain and sales to share integrated, real-time data, enabling them to make faster, more informed decisions.
Previously, the company was working with a 20-year-old legacy system. This moves them to a cloud-based structure that removes silos and automates demand planning and production workflows. As a result, Clorox expects to benefit from increased supplier collaboration and responsiveness.
"Equipped with sharper insights and more connected data across the business, we’re energized by the opportunities ahead to drive efficiency, expand margins and deliver superior value for our consumers," Keil said in a statement, adding that the ERP system will function as the digital backbone for Clorox.
Additional ERP Benefits
CEO Linda Rendle said during recent earnings conversations that while the new ERP went live in July for most of Clorox's operations, including audit cash, demand fulfillment and logistics, manufacturing required a three-phased approach — the last of which was completed in January.
EVP and CFO Luc Bellet said that while this wraps up the fundamental investments around the company's digital transformation, a steady increase in tech adoption will continue as Clorox looks to take advantage of the new digital infrastructure put in place.
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This includes upgrading revenue growth management, using the harmonized data from the ERP implementation to drive real-time insights that will inform designing the right pack for the right consumer for the right retailer at the right time, according to Rendle.
"If they're in club [stores], we want to be there. If they're in dot-com, we want to be there. If they're buying at a small grocery store, we want to ensure that we're there with the right price and pack," she said.
In fact, the ERP benefits will trickle down to several areas of business.
"A lot of the benefit of the optimization will be on the supply chain, whether it's on the manufacturing or the logistics … and of course, we will also start seeing some benefit of automation in our admin," said Bellet. "Now that we have a global data infrastructure, we're able to actually accelerate our adoption of global business services, which will create further efficiencies on the admin side."
