Grupo Bimbo kneads Oracle Fusion Cloud apps into its growth strategy

The world’s largest baking company is moving beyond the “realm of science fiction” with its planned use of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence and GenAI.

Michael Hickins | January 06, 2025


Managing data is becoming the leavening of Grupo Bimbo’s global success.

For the world’s largest baking company, a new data standardization process is allowing it to reap the benefits of a years-long transition from on-premises Oracle systems to the Oracle Fusion Cloud suite of applications. Now it intends to use AI embedded in its Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Supply Chain Management & Manufacturing, and Oracle Transportation Management applications to help improve product quality, sales forecasting, and driver safety. Grupo Bimbo is also using Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence to upgrade its Connection Center from a run-of-the-mill call center to a true customer service hub, with the ability to do social listening.

For starters, Grupo Bimbo, which produces baked goods under familiar brands such as Entenmann’s, Thomas’ English Muffins, Arnold, and Sara Lee, is using a digital assistant powered by generative AI to give employees quick answers to pressing questions. Rather than having to sort through dozens of policy manuals for answers to queries such as which next steps to take in the event a production line is interrupted, line employees can simply ask the chatbot. Likewise, business leaders can access sales and other financial data based on prompts they give to a GenAI capability built into Oracle Cloud ERP, without having to consult a dashboard or ask IT to build reports.

“It’s helping us move out of the realm of science fiction and into our daily reality,” says Diego Bustos, Grupo Bimbo vice president for data and analytics.

‘Digital core modernization’

Now we can spend less time producing information and more time getting insights out of the information.”

Diego Bustos Vice President for Data and Analytics, Grupo Bimbo

Having transitioned more than 90% of its on-premises Oracle applications to their Fusion Cloud counterparts, the company is now starting to make use of the advanced data analytics capabilities built into those applications, in the form of Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence.

The key initiative enabling what Bustos calls Grupo Bimbo’s “digital core modernization” has been the creation of a data management office, responsible for enforcing data standards for the company worldwide. “It’s data lifecycle management for the entire enterprise,” he says. “Now we can spend less time producing information and more time getting insights out of the information.”

Creating and sharing consistent data sources has helped Grupo Bimbo improve financial and operational performance enterprisewide. The company has better visibility into its inventory, improved demand planning and forecasting, significantly reduced product returns, and improved product allocation by geography and region.

AI applications

Grupo Bimbo’s new data strategy is also allowing it to make greater use of emerging technologies, such as AI and virtual reality.

The company plans to use AI’s image recognition capabilities to identify defective goods on its production lines in real time. “Now we have a more proactive way of determining whether an oven is behaving in a different way and maybe stop it there, instead of losing an entire production,” Bustos says.

The Mexico City–based company is also working to improve driver safety through more immersive AI-driven virtual reality training. “We can simulate a lot of different conditions—rain, snow, hay, cows crossing the street—and ensure that our drivers know what to do in each circumstance,” he says.

Grupo Bimbo also plans to use the AI and analytics capabilities of Fusion Data Intelligence to better understand consumer demand patterns and improve sales forecasting. Data is now more accessible to company users, including those who work at the Connection Center, which could lead to “new ways of operating or even creating new revenue streams out of the data we are generating,” Bustos says.

None of this analysis, however, would have been possible if Grupo Bimbo hadn’t decided to use Oracle Fusion Cloud globally and to standardize data formats for its entire enterprise, he says.

“The AI revolution came at a very good moment,” Bustos says, “because now we do have the data to start leveraging and exploiting that technology more than we did in the past.”


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