With over 160 years of legacy across hundreds of local markets, Heineken faces a common yet complex challenge: How to modernize a highly distributed enterprise without losing the local touch that made it iconic. Artificial intelligence and data technologies offer a path forward, but only when paired with clear business intent and powered by connected intelligence.

At the heart of that transformation is a shift from data accumulation to insight generation. Unlocking business value comes down to focusing efforts where they matter most — driving real-world impact through connected intelligence, according to Ronald den Elzen (pictured), chief digital and technology officer​ of Heineken N.V.

Heineken’s Ronald den Elzen talks with theCUBE about the company’s approach to data and architecture.

“It’s about unlocking the [data’s] value, knowing where the value is and focusing on the big areas … where you can make a difference,” he said. “Most of the value we see is understanding consumer behaviors and trends and innovations — helping to grow the business of our customers with product recommendations, making our sales reps do better … [making] faster, smarter decisions and going to the right outlet with the right solutions … understanding potential churn, revenue management … optimizing our marketing spend.”

Den Elzen spoke with theCUBE Research’s  Dave Vellante at IBM Think, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. Their conversation spanned Heineken’s data strategy, modular architecture and IBM’s role in enabling secure, scalable AI. (* Disclosure below.)

Scaling local relevance with connected intelligence

Heineken’s global footprint spans decentralized markets and local brands — a landscape that now depends on connected intelligence to unify systems without compromising the nuance of regional operations. That autonomy once enabled agility, but today, it creates friction when attempting to scale technologies such as AI. Harmonizing core platforms while preserving market intimacy is the only sustainable way forward, according to den Elzen.

“How can you combine being local, the proximity to your customers and the understanding of local behaviors and local culture?” he said. “How can we combine that with global scale? You can have this scale under the hood … and at the front end you can be super close to your consumers and your customers’ needs … [by] harmonizing and standardizing where it matters and allow[ing] differentiation where we really need to excel and be so local in the market that there’s a bit of flexibility.”

To support both speed and scale, Heineken developed a standalone data stack outside of its legacy systems, enabling teams to focus on high-impact AI and business intelligence use cases. This modular approach provides experimentation and incremental value delivery while insulating innovation from technical debt, according to den Elzen.

“We want to move from a very decentralized, fragmented approach to a much more centralized approach, but modular, composable in different pieces because we need to be agile in the world of today,” he said. “I need to build in some flexibility on the tech stack … so that we can modify to changes in innovation. The world is going so fast that we need to be flexible.”

Security and data privacy remain key priorities for Heineken, especially given its goal of becoming the best-connected brewer. That ambition raises the stakes for cyber risk and compliance — an area where IBM plays a central role, den Elzen explained. The company supports everything from tech stack optimization to AI implementation and decommissioning of old systems.

“IBM helps us in many of these elements … on helping to clean and harmonize our data management on the digital backbone,” he said. “They help us to build the future on the tech stack. They help us on data, and they helped us on decommissioning. Now, they’re helping us with their AI and their gen AI … to do things in a much smarter, faster way and cheaper way.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Think:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for IBM Think. Neither IBM Corp., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE