07/11/2025
IT Support in Food and Beverage
If you walk into any food or beverage facility, you’ll see a finely tuned operation, production lines humming, logistics moving in sync, and teams under pressure to deliver freshness, quality, and speed. Behind all that coordination lies a quiet force: IT support.
For years, IT support was viewed as a back-office necessity, a cost to be managed, not a lever for growth. That mindset is rapidly changing. Where margins are tight and customer expectations high, IT support in food and beverage has become a strategic driver of productivity, innovation, and resilience.
The new operating reality in food & beverage
Few sectors are as complex or time-sensitive as food and beverage. Demand fluctuates with seasonality, consumer tastes change overnight, and sustainability targets are tightening.
According to Gartner’s 2025 Supply Chain Tech Trends, the future of supply chains is automated, connected, and data-driven. Success depends on systems that stay up and respond in real time, and that makes IT support in food and beverage a frontline enabler of continuity and agility.
Meanwhile, the Field Service Management (FSM) market is expanding rapidly. Grand View Research projects it to grow from $4.4 billion in 2022 to $11.8 billion by 2030. This reflects a global shift towards smarter, proactive service, a model this sector is embracing to keep production lines moving and customer promises intact.
Businesses are moving away from reactive maintenance towards predictive and connected IT support.
The Market.us Field Service Management System Market Report highlights increasing investment in cloud and mobile-first service platforms, which help organisations cut downtime and manage distributed assets with real-time visibility.
At the same time, a ResearchGate analysis of the food and beverage industry shows that digital efficiency and operational resilience are now top strategic priorities. In other words, excellence in IT support is a competitive advantage.
What “excellence in support” really means
In food and beverage, excellence in support puts closing tickets as the basis. Ensuring that every part of the operation, from factory floor to delivery fleet, keeps running smoothly.
Key elements include:
Fast, proactive field services that minimise disruption to production or dispatch.
Predictive monitoring using data from IoT-connected machinery and devices.
A unified digital workplace, giving frontline staff and IT teams a single view of system health.
Clear communication between IT and operations, translating technical fixes into business impact.
For example, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), one of the largest bottling companies in Europe, implemented LineView™, a real-time production monitoring and analytics system. By leveraging automated line data and actionable insights, CCEP empowered its operators and management teams to identify and address efficiency losses more quickly. Within two years of deployment, the company achieved a 20% increase in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
Why IT support in food and beverage drives growth
Productivity through continuity
Every minute of downtime means lost output. Reliable IT support keeps production and logistics moving, ensuring teams can focus on delivering, not firefighting.
Cutting hidden costs
Proactive IT support, especially predictive maintenance, helps avoid those indirect costs. IoT-based insights can flag early warning signs, enabling targeted interventions before efficiency drops.
Enabling innovation
When support is robust, CIOs can confidently roll out automation, AI, and data analytics initiatives. Stable infrastructure underpins experimentation, turning IT support into the launchpad for Industry 4.0 transformation.
Best practices for CIOs and operations leaders
Modernise field service management
Adopt FSM systems that combine mobility, dashboards, and analytics to give teams visibility in real time.
Move from reactive to predictive
Predictive monitoring and preventive maintenance reduce unplanned outages. Integrating IoT data with support analytics can identify anomalies days before a failure.
Introduce experience metrics
Traditional SLAs measure uptime, and Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) measure how effectively employees can do their jobs.
Support function to strategic growth
For CIOs and Heads of Operations, the question is “How can IT support help us grow smarter?”
That requires three mindset shifts:
- From cost to capability – view support as a strategic asset that protects output and customer experience.
- From reactive to predictive – use analytics to anticipate issues, not just respond.
- From isolated to integrated – embed IT support within operations and continuous-improvement programmes.
Companies that make this shift see measurable impact: higher uptime, faster product launches, stronger employee engagement, and better customer satisfaction.
Agility and resilience at scale
Organisations that invest in modern, proactive IT support consistently outperform peers on operational metrics. They experience fewer disruptions, lower service costs, and more engaged teams.
In an unpredictable market, IT support in food and beverage is the glue that holds digital operations together, quietly powering growth, sustainability, and resilience.
Get in touch with our team of dedicated experts to see how Getronics can provide IT support in food and beverage.
