
References to the term ‘digitalisation’ in beverage company filings rose markedly in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2020, according to recent research.
The use of the term was up 132% year-on-year in the three months to the end of June. In total, the frequency of digitalisation appearances in the 12 months to the end of June soared by almost 400% on the same 12-month period in 2015-2016, when GlobalData first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.
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To assess whether digitalisation is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of drinks manufacturing companies, two measures were calculated. Firstly, there's the percentage of companies that have referenced the term at least once in filings during the past 12 months - this was 92% compared to 54% in 2016. Secondly, GlobalData calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that used the term.
Of the 20 biggest employers in beverages, Pernod Ricard referred to digitalisation the most between July 2020 and June 2021. GlobalData identified 63 digitalisation-related sentences in the group's filings, representing 1.8% of all sentences.
Nestle mentioned the term the second-most, in 1.3% of the sentences in its filings over the 12 months. Other top employers with high digitalisation mentions included Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Asahi Group and Tingyi.
Across all drinks manufacturing companies, the Q2 filing that featured the strongest focus on digitalisation came from Kirin Holdings. Of the document's 1,068 sentences, 22 (2.1%) featured the word.
Over the three months, beverage companies based in Western Europe were most likely to mention digitalisation, with 0.53% of sentences in filings referring to the issue. In contrast, companies with their headquarters in the US cited the term in just 0.16% of sentences.
When drinks manufacturing companies publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Digitalisation is one of these topics - companies that invest in these areas are expected to be better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.
This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on cybersecurity and how important the issue is considered within the beverages industry,. However, a company mentioning cybersecurity more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into cybersecurity have been successes or failures.