Campbell Soup Company: Harmonizing Processes and Empowering Workers

摘要

In 2007 Campbell Soup Company was implementing Project Harmony: a multi-year effort to implement SAP and create more standardized and integrated business processes acrossCampbell’s North American businesses. Campbell pursued its transformation with an expectation that it would not experience the performance dip common in companiesimplementing major new systems. Toward that end, Campbell designed a governance structureintended to (1) allocate ownership of project outcomes to senior executives; (2) free up top talentto ensure effective process design and smooth implementation; (3) benefit from the expertise ofexternal 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.