Campbell Soup Company: Harmonizing Processes and Empowering Workers
In 2007 Campbell Soup Company was implementing Project Harmony: a multi-year effort to implement SAP and create more standardized and integrated business processes across Campbell’s North American businesses. Campbell pursued its transformation with an expectation that it would not experience the p...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68551 |
| Summary: | In 2007 Campbell Soup Company was implementing Project Harmony: a multi-year effort to implement SAP and create more standardized and integrated business processes across
Campbell’s North American businesses. Campbell pursued its transformation with an expectation that it would not experience the performance dip common in companies
implementing major new systems. Toward that end, Campbell designed a governance structure
intended to (1) allocate ownership of project outcomes to senior executives; (2) free up top talent
to ensure effective process design and smooth implementation; (3) benefit from the expertise of
external partners; and (4) empower stakeholders to learn from one another and drive benefits from new systems and processes. Early results suggest that the firm’s efforts were paying off. This case describes Campbell’s journey from isolated systems and processes to an integrated business with empowered local decisions makers who were learning to take advantage of transparent transaction data. |
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