Embracing technology to enhance employee experience brings Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam’s competitive edge

The company created a virtual world to make employee onboarding more fun and engaging.

We started our digital transformation journey in 2019 with a clear focus on reimagining customer centricity with digital tools, creating an agile and flexible workplace and driving productivity through automation. During the last 4 years, we have accelerated our adoption of cutting-edge technology and brought efficiency gains. 
In the next stage of our digital evolution, our ambition is to become one of the “most digitally progressive organisations” in Vietnam and take a leadership leap with digital objectives of-

• Becoming an early adopter as an organisation to unlock opportunities for productivity and efficiency thus creating tangible business value in daily operations.
• Embedding digital mindset and engagement, focused on driving early employee adoption, usability of technology and driving digital change management.
• Building future-ready Digital Capability to leverage digitisation as an innovation tool to drive the moonshot ambition. The company created a virtual world to make employee onboarding more fun and engaging.

In the ever-evolving landscape of business, innovation isn't just a choice – it's a necessity. In 2023, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam was determined to push boundaries and forge a path towards a workplace where mundane tasks are automated, learning becomes immersive, and technology isn’t just a tool but a catalyst for transformation.

With this goal in mind, the company decided on a dual-pronged objective: to leverage AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to streamline core processes and drive business productivity, and to foster an engaging immersive employee development platform through the integration of Web 3.0 AR/VR capabilities 

Coca-Cola Beverage Vietnam’s platform-centric approach allowed them to adopt cloud-native capabilities quickly using Power Platform and its AI-based RPA capabilities like Powerapps for low code apps, Flows to automate workflows and PowerBI for data-driven reporting.

This resulted in Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam cutting down on mundane tasks that would take valuable time from at least 15 people. The automation also enabled a massive reduction in cycle time of creating sales orders from 30 minutes to 3 minutes for 75,000 per month as well as 25,000 POs. Workflow automation also reduced customer creation cycle time to be reduced from 5 days to 2 days by enabling multiple approvals online. Additionally, 200 manual forms were transformed into e-forms and 6,500 contracts were turned into e-contracts reducing paperwork.

Second, with Web 3.0 as part of their strategy, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam used the Unity Platform to develop a virtual world called My Space. The platform allowed them to create a digital twin of its campuses which acted as an immersive virtual space for employees.

The platform leveraged gamification elements like avatars, 3D, and AR VR elements that can be accessed through VR headsets, standard laptops, and even just through mobile phones. 

For example, new employees can explore the Virtual Happy Land, the virtual world modelled after the factory, sales offices, and head offices. With AR/VR glasses for remote sales capability building, the head office can direct the team on the ground on the execution of best practices in the market.

The virtual world also has the Light Square, a 3D digital bulletin board that shows company news and corporate announcements

Meanwhile, The Nest allows employees to cultivate their talents through group engagement. Additionally, it also has a Gift Park that rewards employees for completing tasks.

The virtual platform will allow a reduction of machine operator onboarding time from six weeks to just one week. The use of AR glasses helped cut down sales representative onboarding time from five days to just two days. The gamification allowed the CCBVL HR team to measure the learning agility of new and existing employees whilst the rewards function motivates the team to complete tasks.

This imaginative and revolutionary initiative won Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam the Vietnam Technology Excellence Award for Digital - Food & Beverage at the recently concluded Asian Technology Excellence Awards, where top businesses that are at the forefront of the technological revolution and digital transformation in their respective industries are recognised.

Currently, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam aims to expand its Web 3.0 platform for in-house training and create VR experience booths in offices and plants as virtual learning centres. 

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding retail initiatives, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].