PepsiCo's digital 'hub' in Barcelona already employs 150 people from 30 nationalities

PepsiCo celebrates these days the first anniversary of the commissioning of the hubglobal digital that it has installed in Barcelona with the aim ofaccelerate the digital transformation of the American multinationalof the food and beverage sector, with well-known brands such as Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and Alvalle. Throughout its first year, the development center has incorporated 150 professionals of 30 different nationalities, so it is still far from itsgoal of employing close to 400 people in 2024.According to the company, 33% of current workers are women, mostly in data science and analytics areas, but thethe challenge is to achieve gender parity by 2025."In this first year we have recruited great digital talent, placing special focus on diversity; we are very proud to already have 33% women on the team," explained Gaston Besanson, head ofhuband Vice President of Global Data Science at PepsiCo. According to the executive, contributing to reducing the gender gap in the ICT sector is one of the center's purposes. It has joined initiatives such as the Gender Equality Tech Hub network, promoted by the allWomen digital and technological skills school for women, and also collaborates with Barcelona Digital Talent, the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation's program to foster the training and attraction of digital talent in the city. Thehub, located at the corporate headquarters that PepsiCo's Spanish subsidiary has in the WTC of Cornellà, was born to centralize the development of the multinational's main digitalization programs, led by Barcelona native Ramon Laguarta. Among its objectives is also "to act as an incubator of solutions to stimulate an internal culture change that will help the company drive long-term innovation." In its first year of life, the hub has focused onto create digital applications aimed at improving internal planning, manufacturing, distribution, and sales processes.A project called Integrated Business Planning (IBP) stands out, featuring a demand prediction functionality based on artificial intelligence and fed by multiple data sources. "The tool, implemented for the first time in the Spanish business unit, allows for refining decision-making while simplifying and automating planning thanks to obtaining a shared plan for commercial, production, and finance functions," explains PepsiCo. Another project developed is apromotional policy optimization toolthat is already being implemented with some clients in the United States. The program, based on a demand prediction algorithm, allows finding the optimal combination of promotions that guarantees an optimal calendar for PepsiCo and its clients, the group points out. "Our hub is a fundamental engine and pillar of the company's global digital transformation strategy. The center is at the service of the company and is a meeting point between business knowledge, the needs to be solved, and the technology required for it," adds Besanson. To continue expanding the workforce of thehub, PepsiCo has an open process to recruit different digital profiles, such asData Scientists (Data Scientists),Machine Learning Engineers(Machine Learning Engineers),Data Engineers(Data Engineers), Service Designers(Service Designers) andProduct Managers.