Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam earns recognition at Asian Technology Excellence Awards 2025

iRED project transforms retail execution with AI-powered image recognition and advanced data analytics.

Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam was honoured with the Vietnam Technology Excellence Award for Digital - Food & Beverage at the Asian Technology Excellence Awards 2025 for its pioneering iRED initiative.

The iRED project is a retail execution platform that replaces traditional manual auditing with artificial intelligence-driven image recognition and data analytics. By enabling faster, smarter, and more cost-efficient store audits, the solution has significantly enhanced coverage, accuracy, and responsiveness across Coca-Cola’s retail operations in Vietnam.

From manual audits to smart execution

Previously, retail execution audits relied on third-party vendors performing manual checks in just a fraction of outlets. Under the old system (RED), surveys reached only about 10,500 outlets monthly, covering a limited 2% of the outlet universe and just 20% of priority GOLD outlets. Survey times averaged 10–15 minutes, and data-driven actions took up to two weeks to implement.

By contrast, iRED has equipped Coca-Cola’s internal teams with AI-powered image recognition, boasting SKU accuracy of more than 98%. This advancement has expanded monthly coverage to over 30,000 outlets, with quarterly coverage reaching 71,000, a fourfold increase. Coverage of GOLD outlets also rose sharply, from 20% monthly to 45% monthly and 90% quarterly.

Speed, efficiency, and cost savings

With iRED, survey time has been cut to just six minutes, and the data-to-action timeline has been reduced to D+1, allowing teams to act on insights the very next day. The breadth of measurement has grown to cover 121 SKUs, cooler purity across multiple categories, and a wider range of POSM and SOVI metrics.

The cost per visit has also dropped by more than half, freeing resources for further expansion and deeper market insights. As a result, the percentage of net sales revenue covered by surveys more than doubled, directly boosting sales performance and enabling decisions that are closely aligned with customer behaviours.

Driving future growth

The success of iRED demonstrates the potential of scalable, AI-enabled retail execution. With year-on-year growth in outlet coverage, the platform is positioned for future expansion across channels and markets. It stands as a blueprint for transforming retail execution throughout the Coca-Cola ecosystem.

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards celebrates the most outstanding technological innovations and achievements across Asia, recognising organisations that leverage emerging technologies to drive business value, strengthen customer experiences, and transform industries.

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2026 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding retail initiatives, please contact Julie Anne Nunez-Difuntorum at +65 3158 1386 ext 242 or [email protected].