Brown-Forman CIO Looks to Data for Smarter Booze

Brown-Forman, whose brands include Old Forester and Woodford Reserve bourbon, has spent the past three years taking inventory and integrating diverse pools of consumer, production and sales data across its global operations, as part of a broader effort to update an aging technology stack, Mr. Nall said. That was no small task. Founded nearly 150 year ago, Brown-Forman today has some 4,800 employees and operates in more than 170 countries world-wide. Since becoming CIO in 2015, Mr. Nall has led a gradual strategic shift in the role of the company's enterprise information-technology hub, from a backroom tech support service to a business partner aligned with marketing and sales teams, as well as other corporate and global production functions. That shift has seen data scientists and other IT pros increasingly working across the entire business on efforts to drive efficiencies and generate revenue: "Technology is interwoven into the whole process," he said. Nowhere is the need for a more business-oriented IT model more clear than with the emerging powers of artificial intelligence and machine learning to supercharge corporate decision-making, he said.