With annual revenues of USD42 billion, Kraft Foods Inc. is the world's second-largest food company, selling products in 150 countries and employing 100,000 people who work tirelessly to make delicious foods. Kraft Foods delivers millions of smiles to consumers every day—bringing them everything from American brand icons like Kraft cheeses, Maxwell House coffee and Oscar Mayer meats to global powerhouse brands like Oreo, Tang powdered beverages and Toblerone chocolates.

In the fall of 2008, Kraft Foods was faced with two global risk and insurance challenges. The company needed a sophisticated risk management information system to consolidate all its insurance policy and property risk information. In addition, it required a global brokerage firm to bring worldwide consistency to its risk management services and international casualty insurance program.

We spoke with Cindy Slubowski in corporate risk management at Kraft Foods about why Kraft turned to Aon for a global technology and service solution.

Q: Tell us what led you to seek a risk management partner?

A: In 2007, Kraft Foods had spun off from its parent company, Altria Group Inc. At the time, there was virtually no aggregated information regarding insurance policies or exposure information. As a result, our first critical step was to establish an international data platform. We set out to find a partner who could help make that happen.

Q: What drew you to Aon?

A: After reviewing several risk management systems, we selected Aon RiskConsole since it presented the best overall solution. It offered several different modules from which we were able to pick and choose the specific components we required. In addition, we knew the system was flexible and could be configured to meet our specific global business needs.

Q: How are you using Aon's eSolutions RiskConsole?

A: Using RiskConsole, we will be able to aggregate data across our entire U.S. and international programs. For example, the Policy Module will enable us to collect, monitor and manage information on our global and locally placed insurance policies. With an understanding of our options on a global basis, we'll be able to optimize coverage and premium spending. We'll also leverage this intelligence to formulate an effective risk management strategy into the future.

Q: What benefits have you realized from RiskConsole?

A: With regard to property coverage, Kraft Foods traditionally utilized a time-consuming, manual process to compile annual renewal information—such as COPE data [construction, occupancy, protection and exposure], property claims and detailed financial valuations. In the past, the company had to extract this information across several systems and request data from various global locations and insurance providers—then staff members spent hours consolidating this information into spreadsheets. RiskConsole's Property Module will centralize all property risk information and streamline data collection efforts.

We needed to collect this information in an efficient, proactive and timely manner, as well as to present data in a format that was easy to review and modify—particularly around property renewal time.

Q: In such a vast organization, how are you rolling out the use of RiskConsole?

A: Kraft Foods is conducting a phased implementation of [the technology]. The first phase will oversee the rollout of the Policy and Property Modules, which will be customized to meet the company's unique requirements. These modules will pull in information from the Aon Global Account Management System and other data sources in order to consolidate worldwide policy and claims information.

Future phases will include the implementation of RiskConsole's Litigation Module. In the past, Kraft Foods had no way to track historical claims, which were self-insured and still undergoing legal action. With the Litigation Module, the company will be able to track these claims and obtain a comprehensive picture of claims activity.

Q: How do you see the program evolving?