PepsiCo’s new digital platform transforms North American direct-to-store delivery with AI and real-time data

PepsiCo has overhauled its North American DSD operations by integrating mobility, AI, and real-time data into a unified platform, marking one of the sector’s largest modernisations to boost efficiency, sustainability, and customer responsiveness.

PepsiCo is undertaking a significant digital transformation of its direct-to-store delivery (DSD) operations in North America, blending mobility, artificial intelligence (AI), and real-time data to enhance efficiency and customer responsiveness. This comprehensive initiative, developed in collaboration with longtime technology partner Infosys, consolidates over 40 legacy applications into a unified Sales+ platform. This platform supports more than 500,000 store visits each week and empowers over 25,000 field representatives, marking one of the largest modernisations of its kind in the consumer goods sector.

The DSD network, long admired for its scale and precision, faced mounting pressure from shifting consumer expectations and evolving retail models such as click-and-collect and dark stores. To meet these new market realities, PepsiCo revamped its traditionally monolithic infrastructure into a cloud-native, flexible system designed for speed, offline reliability, and frontline empowerment. Infosys played a crucial role in this effort, completing a two-phase modernisation journey that began with workflow consolidation and progressed to embedding smart automation and AI-driven capabilities. Notably, this included deploying what Infosys describes as the world’s largest implementation of Xamarin-based mobile applications, bringing enterprise-grade functionality to mobile devices with full offline capacity, vital for diverse field environments.

The new platform delivers digitally enabled workflows that streamline every aspect of the delivery and sales process. Field representatives now have access to digital planograms, automated alerts, digital asset management, and paperless proof-of-delivery on iOS devices, reducing paperwork and improving accuracy. Integrated mobile banking and task automation simplify operations, while predictive analytics help optimise decision-making. According to PepsiCo executives, these enhancements have consolidated previously fragmented systems, fostering a stronger sales focus and elevating customer service quality. Furthermore, Infosys highlights that generative AI, powered through its AI-first suite Topaz, has accelerated development cycles by improving code reliability and developer productivity.

Sustainability is a clear beneficiary of this transformation as well. Paperless documentation has significantly decreased paper consumption, while advanced routing algorithms and store-level insights have enabled frontline teams to perform their tasks more efficiently, contributing to reduced carbon footprints.

Looking beyond store-level operations, PepsiCo is also integrating frontline data into broader supply chain and enterprise planning processes. Real-time feedback from shelves, ordering patterns, and delivery performance can now inform upstream demand forecasting, inventory management, and trade investments. This approach aligns with industry trends seen in major retailers such as Walmart, which are using real-time shelf intelligence and automated ordering to reduce stockouts. By enabling proactive scenario planning, PepsiCo aims to improve supply chain responsiveness to local market fluctuations and emerging consumer behaviours.

Beyond this specific Sales+ project, PepsiCo continues to advance its AI capabilities through other strategic initiatives. Recently, the company announced plans to deploy Salesforce’s Agentforce, an autonomous AI platform geared towards enhancing field operations and customer engagement, signalling a broader AI adoption agenda for innovation and sustainable growth. Additionally, PepsiCo is accelerating its digital transformation with Amazon Web Services (AWS), leveraging AWS infrastructure to further AI innovation, supply chain transformation, and personalised consumer experiences.

In parallel, PepsiCo is investing in complementary AI technologies such as machine vision from KoiReader Technologies, which uses NVIDIA’s AI platform to improve warehouse efficiency by accurately reading labels and barcodes in real time. It is also harnessing Azure Machine Learning to analyse sales, inventory, and purchasing data, helping it shift from traditional data organisation to strategic decision-making. These integrated digital efforts contribute to PepsiCo’s ambition to build a seamless global digital backbone, linking operations from farm to consumer, and creating richer ecosystems that tie store-level insights directly to consumer behaviour.

Together, these initiatives represent a sweeping reinvention of PepsiCo’s commercial and supply chain operations, reflecting a future-focused commitment to agility, sustainability, and enhanced value delivery for customers and consumers alike.

📌 Reference Map:

• ^[1], ^[2] (SupplyChain360) – Paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• ^[3] (PepsiCo Press Release) – Paragraph 6
• ^[4] (PepsiCo Press Release) – Paragraph 7
• ^[5] (NVIDIA Blog) – Paragraph 8
• ^[6] (Microsoft Case Study) – Paragraph 8
• ^[7] (Supply Chain Digital) – Paragraph 8

Source: Fuse Wire Services