Business Situation
To meet the challenges of the marketplace Pabst became a “virtual brewery,” a marketing and logistics company selling and distributing beer that is produced by other breweries, all under the umbrella of Pabst Brewing Company. The company’s legacy IT systems were not prepared to support the shift in its business model. The infrastructure and business applications were not integrated, processes were manual, and communications with outsourcers and customers needed improvement.

Solution
Avanade was engaged to perform the overhaul of Pabst’s IT systems including:

• Strategic IT planning, building of work plans, and overall program management
• Replacing NT4.0/DOS and Novell with Windows 2000
• Migration of email system from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange 2000
• Migration from a proprietary accounting system to Microsoft’s Great Plains business solution
• Replacing back office solutions with solutions implemented in the .NET framework
• Outsourcing IT management—Avanade acts as the CIO of Pabst Brewing Company

• Complete standardization on the Microsoft platform and applications
• Integration of all back office systems
• Automated accounting, order fulfillment and logistics processes with accurate reporting
• Full utilization of current tools and technologies—systems are current and Pabst is primed for future IT upgrades