Year In Review
2022
A YEAR OF TRANSITION
CONA Services Board Elects Brett Findley as Company’s New Chief Executive Officer Brett Findley, who previously served as Chief Services Officer (CSO) of the company, succeeded Reinhard Meister, who retired at the end of March. Findley is only the second CEO to lead the company after its creation in 2016. Meister, dedicated over 20 years in the Coca-Cola Bottling System and built CONA Services to elevate the U.S. Bottling business. Through his leadership and collaboration, Reinhard consistently achieved his goal of providing advantaged services to Bottler members. He was a driving force in the development of the Coke One template. Findley was named Chief Services Officer in 2016 and played an integral role in building the company. He has spent the last 7 years ensuring CONA Services provides value driven solutions and best in class support to Bottlers on the CONA IT platform. Under his leadership, the company has expanded its strategic partnerships within the bottling community and other organizations around North America.
Prior to helping develop CONA Services, Findley served at the CocaCola Company in many distinct positions. He worked as the Enabling Services Director and then as Group Director of Engagement, Deployment and Application Support. Findley began his career with the Coca-Cola System in January 2000 as a Business Systems Analyst. Overall, Findley has spent over 25 years gaining experience within IT leadership and consulting. With 22 years of supporting Coca-Cola Bottlers in the United States and overseas, Findley’s dedication to the system has been more than substantial.
When asked about the transition in leadership Reinhard Meister commented: “I’m very happy to hand over my responsibility to Brett Findley, who is an accomplished leader, to bring CONA Services to the next level”.
CONA SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022
Table of Contents
Message from our CEO CONA Overview Board of Directors Chairman of the Board Our Leaders 2022 Highlights People & Engagement By the Numbers CFO Update
Message from our CEO Dear CONA Community, Employees, Stakeholders and Valued Partners, It is with great pleasure that I address you in this letter, my first as CEO, for CONA Services LLC's 2022 Annual Report. A Year of Transition: This year has no doubt been a year of change - in many ways a changing of the guards. We said farewell to several passionate leaders who were instrumental in the formation of CONA Services. Reinhard Meister, our inaugural CEO, retired from the Company after leading much of the foundational Coke One program, launching the CONA Solution in 2014 and finally creating CONA Services LLC in 2016. Eric Steadman, the last of the 4 CIO's that initiated the CONA program, completed his tenure as Chairman and rolled off the CONA Board having been promoted to Chief Financial Officer of Coca-Cola United. Bob Shank and Carl Carson, both critical founding leadership team members, retired. Bob in particular was the passion and drive behind our CONA Culture and CONA Gives Back programs that remain core components of our employee program today. Finally Steve Hauser, our first Legal Counsel who led the legal work to set up our company, operating agreements and governance, retired. I take this opportunity to thank them each for the foundational work they did for our Company. Our future is well placed through their vision and purpose. Delivering Value with our Customers: At CONA Services LLC, our Bottlers remain at the center of everything we do. I am pleased that our unwavering commitment to their success has resulted in strengthened partnerships throughout 2022. This year saw the world begin to reconnect as the COVID pandemic was brought under control. Our teams took the opportunity to be together again and re-energized the collaboration that CONA was founded on. We completed our Snowflake, Blue Yonder and Field Service Lightning deployments, releasing new capabilities to the business. We also completed our Ariba Phase 1 program with a highly successful single wave deployment to all Bottlers. The completion of these programs, along with the upgrade of Readsoft and the launch of ongoing pilots and deployments of osapiens DSD and Vendsmart, are foundational to our upcoming SAP S/4HANA Program. 2022 brought the launch of the first phase of Project Matterhorn. This focused on delivering the technical upgrade from SAP's legacy ECC ERP to their new S/4HANA platform. Project Matterhorn will form the backbone of our work through 2023 and 2024 ensuring the successful upgrade of our core solution while minimizing impacts and delivering change management support to our Bottlers.
Financial Leadership: Our financial performance in 2022 has again be exemplary, and I am pleased to announce that we have achieved yet another year of successful budget management. This year brought change within our finance processes with greater alignment and accountability of our solution and technology leaders, as well as much improved granularity in our business planning process. By diligently monitoring our resources and focusing on efficiency, we were able to surpass our financial targets, resulting in another multi-million dollar operating expense return to our Bottlers. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to our finance team, led by our CFO, Scott Armstrong, for their dedication to financial excellence and their invaluable contributions to our success. Innovation: Our innovation program has continued to evolve. This year we extended our successful Ordersmart solution to the Food Service On-Premise (FSOP) segment of customers. We began piloting Ordersmart to our core Bottlers through hard work and the help of our innovation partners. We also completed a pilot on Product Availability, confirming its future usage for all Bottlers. Both these solutions provide capabilities that enable our Bottlers' Customer and Commercial teams to win in their market and create top-line value for the Coca-Cola System. Cybersecurity and Data Protection: In an era of heightened cyber threats, safeguarding our data and protecting our assets is of paramount importance. With that, CONA Services maintained a strong and secure technical environment throughout 2022. Our commitment to cybersecurity, combined with regular audits and a culture of vigilance, has enabled us to protect our valuable information assets from potential breaches. I thank our security teams for their unwavering dedication to ensuring the integrity of our solution. Employee Engagement and Diversity: Our talented and dedicated workforce continues to be the backbone of our success. We remain committed to fostering an inclusive and engaging work environment that promotes diversity, equality, and empowerment. The progress made in our Employee Engagement and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Councils has been significant, leading to improved employee training and wellness initiatives. We continue to focus on attracting and retaining top talent from diverse backgrounds, as we build a stronger, more innovative team. Looking Ahead: The trust we have built with our Bottlers allows us to take on new challenges together. Our partnership is clearly demonstrated by the inclusion of a CONA Digital Program in our 2023 plans. Such a program represents a significant increase to our portfolio of solution and services that we have continued to build since CONA's formation. As we move forward, I am filled with optimism and enthusiasm for the future of CONA Services LLC. We will continue to prioritize customer success, financial excellence, operational transformation, and cybersecurity. I extend my deepest gratitude to our leaders, employees, and stakeholders for their unwavering support. Together, we have achieved remarkable results, and I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. With the collective efforts of our talented team and the guidance of our Board of Directors, we are positioned for continued growth and success.
Brett Findley Brett Findley CEO
CONA SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022
CONA Overview What is CONA? As our company name reveals,
In other words, CONA Services
“CONA Services” is mainly about
delivers solutions for the Bottlers
two things:
to optimally run their daily business and refresh the world.
CONA = (Coke One North America) is an IT Platform for
Our Bottlers are not only our customers, but are strong
the North American Coca-Cola
partners, and leaders in CONA
Bottling business. It provides
Services’ accomplishments.
our participating Bottlers a common set of processes, data standards, manufacturing and customer solutions. We provide services to our Bottlers that enable a superior customer experience and digital business innovation.
When a Bottler needs an innovation product and the assurance of a strategic partner, they know that they can always rely on CONA Services to deliver.
Our Purpose Unlocking Technology to Deliver Happiness
Our 2026 Vision We will grow our people, partnerships, capabilities and customer base to a profitable business model returning dividends to our owners while maintaining a stable core technology at the right cost.
Our Priorities Be more entrepreneurial. Be more innovative. Be more people focused. Secure the future.
Our Board of Directors is formed by an executive leader from eight of the participating bottlers. The ninth Board seat represents at large for the smaller Bottler organizations. The following Board Members provide strategic guidance to CONA Services through their deep industry knowledge and diversity of
Board of Directors
business experience.
Simon Parkinson
Leigh Crum
Chairman of the BoardChief Information Officer, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages
Vice Chairman of the BoardVP Information Technology, ABARTA Coca-Cola Beverages - At Large
Jeff Turney
Michael Kennaugh
Senior VP Strategy & Business Transformation, Coca-Cola Consolidated
Senior VP Strategy & Chief Information Officer, Reyes Holdings
James Sloan
Terrence Gee
Senior VP Strategy & Business Transformation, Coca-Cola Consolidated
Chief Information Officer, Coca-Cola Bottling Florida
Paul Herring
Beeland Nielson
VP, IT and Digital, CocaCola Beverages Northeast
VP, Commercial Capabilities and Chief Information Officer, Coca-Cola Bottling United
Marla Galic
Scott Bedows
VP of IT and Digital, Liberty Coca-Cola Beverages - At Large
Group Chief Information Officer, Canada, Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Company
Chairman of the Board 2022 was, thankfully, a year of transition for the US as the global pandemic abated. It also marked a year of leadership transition for CONA Services LLC. With the retirement of Reinhard Meister from the CEO position of the organization, Brett Findley was selected and welcomed into the role. However, with this transition, the Bottling partners continue to honor Meister's vision of initially forming a company that enabled the successful refranchising of Coca-Cola Refreshments North America Bottling territory. Meister's steadfast and enthusiastic leadership style laid a solid foundation for the ongoing organizational health and success of CONA. He leaves a legacy that will not be forgotten by all who had the privilege to work alongside him. The CONA Board embraced the appointment of Brett Findley who brings a wealth of experience to the CEO role, not least with his twenty plus years experience of supporting global Coca-Cola Bottlers, but also his tenure as an instrumental senior leader within CONA since it’s inception. Along with the introduction of Brett Findley as CEO, Simon Parkinson (CIO Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages LLC) was appointed Chairman of the The Board. Leigh Crum (Vice President of Information Technology ABARTA Coca-Cola Beverages LLC) was appointed Vice Chairman of The Board. Additionally, Jeff Kirsh was appointed as CONA’s new General Counsel. 2022 saw CONA leadership continue to focus on their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, as well as Employee Engagement Councils, particularly in the areas of employee training and wellness. The employee recruitment process has continually evolved to promote a diverse pool of candidates and panel of interviewers, which will further strengthen an already diverse team of talented CONA individuals.
Throughout 2022, CONA delivered differentiating IT solutions that help strengthen the CONA Bottlers to efficiently run their daily business, effectively serve their customers, and continually refresh their consumers. Notably, the deployment of key value creating capabilities such as the powerful Snowflake analytics platform, the Blue Yonder demand and supply planning platform, and the Field Service Lightning platform to support vending operations were important milestones. Several other initiatives comprising the overall CONA 2.0 program continued to progress with multiple pilots being launched across the CONA Bottlers. Innovation also was an important focus with CONA continuing to work with technology partners to bring fresh ideas and deliver deployable differentiating solutions, including OrderSmart and Product Availability. Project Matterhorn, the enabling initiative for CONA to transition from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA has continued to make important and measurable progress throughout 2022 which will be further amplified during 2023, gaining momentum for a 2024 Q2 deployment. The overall organizational and financial health of CONA is strong, validated by successful SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits. It is important to acknowledge the work of the CONA leadership team and the CONA Board members who serve on the different committees. The governing Bottlers are stronger together leveraging the CONA solutions to bring economies of scale, as well as rich and diverse collaborative thinking for the future digital solutions which will be needed to grow the Bottling businesses through continued customer excellence.
Simon Parkinson
Simon Parkinson CIO Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages LLC
CONA SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022
Our Leaders Our executive leadership team brings a broad industry knowledge and expertise that allows them to strategically position us for the future.
Brett Findley
Scott Armstrong
David McClure
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Information Security Officer
Francesco Quinterno
Petra Romano
Baron Jordan
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Product Officer Enabling
Chief Product Officer Supply Chain
Sam Mitchell
Saurabh Parikh
Steve Priestley
Chief Product Officer Customer & Commercial
Chief Data & Innovation Officer
VP of Strategy & Services
CONA SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022
2022 Highlights Successful Initiatives As the years go by, CONA continues to grow and improve the work we accomplish.
Innovative Solutions
Exceptional Service & Support
Successful, Happy Customers
Throughout 2022, CONA Services continued to put effort toward the attainment of our goals. The amount of accomplishments that were produced by our teams were astronomical. Some key achievements were: Pulling our teams together again. CONA Services set out to bring in-person discussions back. This was done through Bottler workshops with partners including Workforce and Microsoft, large events like Blue Yonder's BY Days, Analytics Day, and more. Finalizing deployment of major programs. Our employees worked incredibly hard in 2022 to deliver multiple successful deployments of major programs that showcased our hard work toward being a valued strategic partner. Continuing the CONA 2.0 journey. CONA 2.0 is our voyage of increasing initiatives and taking CONA to the next level. Through the year, our teams continued this journey with the pilots of multiple successful projects. Innovating for business value. Through deployments, expansions, and more, CONA continues to be dedicated to being an innovative partner that provides products and services to enable our clients with the right solutions. Focusing on core stabilization. To prove our stability, CONA did not stop sharpening the core of our company through a number of projects and innovative actions.
CONA SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022
People & Engagement CONA Culture The CONA Services team continued to grow in 2022. We welcomed an additional fifteen new team members while maintaining an above average retention rate. The company also continued its commitment to inspiring the next generation through a formal Internship program for the 6th consecutive year. CONA brought in six interns who completed the 10week program in a hybrid-model. The structure of the program once again proved to be very successful, hiring two interns as employees and providing all with valuable learning experiences. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Employee Engagement Council was
Council worked hard, with the
created to promote a culture of highly
continued support from partner,
engaged employees and be a voice for
Fundamental Advisory, to further
employees. In 2022, the council made
implement their cause into the culture of
strides toward creating an environment
CONA. Through executing training and
where CONA employees felt their work
learning sessions, a book and podcast
had meaning and was purposeful. They
club, panel discussions and more. The
did this through hosting panel
DEI Council continued to showcase their
discussions, creating routines around
commitment to creating a safe, diverse,
Capacity and Resource Planning,
and inclusive work space. Their efforts
supporting In-Market Bottler visits, as well
were rewarded with zero DEI incidents
as implementing a Route Ride Program,
reported in 2022.
EEC in-office hours, and more.
In 2022, CONA Services continued to safely work toward welcoming employees back into the office. Through this and the continued hard work from employees at home, CONA was able to grow together, achieve promising results, and deliver successful business outcomes to partners and Bottlers.
CONA in the Community Part of the CONA Services culture is our team’s commitment to helping the community. Below are some events that CONA had the pleasure of being apart of in 2022: We partnered with Habitat for HumanityNorth Central Georgia Inc. to help landscape a home for the wonderful Bates Family. We are so grateful to be given the means to help others who deserve it and want to thank all those who supported this thoughtful initiative. CONA participated in the Ronald McDonald Golf Tournament. The mission of RMHC is to create, find, and support programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children and their families. CONA believes in this mission. Many of CONA’s strategic partners once again supported this fundraiser. CONA played a large part in donations for the Atlanta Community Food Bank's "Tech Cares, Tech Shares" fundraiser this year. Our team was the Large Company Winner for Most Points Per Employee.
By the Numbers
$31.5bn
~11,000
594
Bottler Net Sales Revenue
# of Facilities Served
# of Daily Route Rides
83,855
145
$0.053
Total Employees
End of Year Cost Per Case
# of Bottler Employees
76.12
15
% of engaged employees
New Hires
CFO Update CONA Services LLC is now in its seventh year of providing best in class IT products and services for our CONA North American Bottlers. From a financial perspective we have continued to grow and mature as an IT services organization, with our key financial metrics of controllable and consumption-based operating expenses coming in favorable to our business plan targets with a consistent cost per case result for the CONA bottlers. We also continued to improve and advance our balance sheet and cash flow positions during the year which adds depth and strength to our overall net financial position. Given our overall financial strategy of achieving a breakeven position for our financial results, our overall net income came in at a positive level of $.4 mm for the year including all audit adjustments and end of year price rebates to the Bottlers. 1. CONA Financial Results Favorable to Plan CONA Services LLC continued its positive cost per case trend vs our approved Business Plan in 2022 achieving an actual cost per case rate of $.053 cents per case for the full year. This was achieved due to several key factors including successful CONA headcount management, lower depreciation and favorable Bottler volumes. Since our inception, we have continued to model that we can deliver world class IT solutions while maintaining a consistent cost per case expense for our CONA Bottlers. We will continue to optimize and drive out costs in our operating expenses, although we expect the cost per case to increase in the near term given approved additional investments in our CONA 2.0 key initiatives as well as the large migration to the new SAP S/4HANA platform in 2024.
2. Operating Expense Savings During 2022, we were able to realize ~$2.1mm in operating expense savings for the year versus our approved Business Plan. We achieved this by closely monitoring headcount for both contractors and new hires, administrative expense reductions, negotiating price reductions with key vendors, as well as savings on planned spending from our Infrastructure group. 3. Improved Cash Flow and Balance Sheet stability We continued to strengthen our tax, treasury, and balance sheet activities in 2022. Some key highlights included renewal of our $3mm line of credit with our banking partner Wells Fargo, and continued improvements to our regular two-month cash forecast plan to help manage our cash activities. On the balance sheet front, we continued to pay down our Note Payable to The Coca-Cola Company and maintained a strong cash on hand position by December 31. In 2022, we reinstituted our overnight sweep with Wells Fargo that is generating interest income for the Bottlers. Finally, we continued to make good progress on the tax front including hosting several CONA tax committee calls to review and align on overall CONA tax strategies with the Bottlers. We focused our tax work on the Federal and State Research and Development tax credit front and we were able to save the Bottlers almost $1.0mm for 2022. We continue to maintain emphasis on the taxability of sales and use taxes in our various Bottler states related to IT services to ensure we have proper coverage across CONA and our Bottlers. Overall, CONA Services LLC is in a strong financial position as we look now towards 2023 and increasing our investments in new capabilities to help grow our Bottlers profitability. We will continue to invest capital dollars into new technology, specifically now focused on migrating from our core SAP ECC footprint to the new SAP S/4HANA solution over the next year.
Scott Armstrong Scott Armstrong CFO
CONA Services LLC 10 10th St NE #1100 Atlanta, GA 30309