KANSAS CITY, Mo.-- Hostess Brands LLC has hired Accenture to design and implement a new operating model and business processes and deliver end-to-end information technology (IT) transformation. The work has helped Hostess Brands to relaunch Twinkies snack cakes and get them back on store shelves in less than three months.
Investment firms Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. now own Hostess Brands after buying the former company's core snack cake brands out of bankruptcy.
Under the terms of the multi-year agreement signed in April 2013, Accenture designed, built and implemented a new operating model, including a new distribution system and IT systems, across all aspects of the Hostess Brands enterprise, including the sales and marketing, merchandising, manufacturing, finance and order management functions.
The speed of the Accenture's implementation enabled Hostess Brands to get its products onto store shelves in time for the back-to-school shopping season, a crucial period for U.S. retailers and brands, the company said.
"Accenture played an invaluable role in helping bring these much-loved products back onto store shelves and into the hands of U.S. consumers," Dean Metropoulos, owner and CEO of Hostess Brands, said. "The speed and precision of the delivery was crucial, so that our products were available for the back-to-school sales period. Within the first two weeks of reintroducing Twinkies to the shelf we had five times more Twinkies on the market than during the same period last year, and Accenture played its part in helping us make this the sweetest comeback in the history of ever."
Accenture's work to help rebuild Hostess Brands included the following initiatives:
- Design and implementation of end-to-end front-office and backoffice processes, including finance, procurement, sales, transportation management and distribution functions.
- Development of a new distribution system, moving from a direct-store delivery (DSD) model to warehouse delivery, helping to improve efficiency and speed to market.
- Creation of a new data center, hosted on Accenture's private cloud, to manage all business applications and support functions.
- Design, development and coordination of all IT infrastructure, such as shop floor automation and plant infrastructure, and including the set-up of IT systems to support basic company functions such as email, help desk and telephone system.
- Building of a multi-year support model to manage all applications and processes.
- Systems support and training of all Hostess Brands's employees.
- Software and hardware vendor and tool selection.
Harin Shetty, a managing director in Accenture's Consumer Goods & Services practice, said, "The breadth of this engagement made it comparable to starting up a new company, so we are delighted to deliver it successfully and to such a tight timetable. Accenture has helped Hostess Brands go from a standing start to producing and shipping 100 million snack cakes during the first two weeks of the relaunch."
Under the terms of the contract, Accenture will also continue to manage all IT applications, infrastructure and data center services on behalf of Hostess Brands.
Dublin-based Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 266,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.
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