According to the case study please answer the question accordingly
- Introduction
- What types of systems-building methods and tools did ConAgra use for building its system? Explain with examples.
- What steps did ConAgra take to make sure the My Recipe was successful?
- What were the benefits of the new system? How did it change operational activities and decision making at ConAgra ? Explain with examples.
- How successful was this system solution?
- Conclusion
- References with DOI AND URL
ConAgra's Recipe for a Better Human Resources System CASE STUDY Do you have Chef Boyardee Ravioli or Orville Redenbacher popcorn in your pantry or Healthy That all changed in 2013 when the company Choice or Banquet chicken nuggets in your freezer? decided to retire most of its existing HR systems and If so, you're one of the 99 percent of U.S. households implement a comprehensive talent management sys- that use ConAgra food products. ConAgra Foods Inc., tem that was integrated with its on-premises core HR headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is one of North system. The talent management system consisted of America's largest food companies, providing quick, integrated modules that ran on a cloud-based plat- convenient meals, tasty treats, and snacks with brands form. ConAgra called the project to build the new tal- such as Libbys, Banquet, LaChoy, Hunts, Healthy ent management system "My Recipe." Choice, and Blue Bonnet. Thirty-two of ConAgra's A major objective of My Recipe was to store and brands account for more than $100 million in annual share all workforce data in a single central, inte- retail sales. grated cloud-based system. Another was to reduce ConAgra relies on 33,000 employees to ensure ona redundancies, complexity, and operational effi- that supermarket and grocery shelves are stocked ciencies by centralizing the data so they appeared to with its products, and management considers its be coming from one source. Another was to provide human resources to be an essential ingredient for user-friendly tools and processes that made it easier for managers and employees to have meaningful its success. Like many forward-looking companies, conversations about performance and career growth ConAgra recognizes the importance of human Another requirement was the ability to provide a resources to overall corporate success and the ability snapshot of ConAgra's current talent pool and show of the firm to have the right people in place as it pur- how it was developing to meet future business sues its business strategy. Technology is expected to needs. Such a system was expected to better engage play an even larger role going forward in helping the employees and managers, provide more useful company recruit, retain, develop, and manage the data to HR staff, improve talent management, and workers it needs. increase productivity. Until recently, ConAgra did not have the right After a thorough vendor evaluation process, technology in place to obtain maximum value from ConAgra narrowed the search to three vendors and the talents and expertise of its salaried and hourly then selected SuccessFactors. SuccessFactors is employees. It had a core system for basic human SAP-owned global provider of cloud-based software resources (HR) functions, but it also had disparate for human capital management. Its human capital siloed systems for HR functions such as employee management application suite features a learning compensation, development, recruiting, succes management system (LMS), performance manage sion planning, and talent review. These systems ment, recruiting software, applicant tracking soft- produced fragmen armation and could not ware, succession planning, talent management, support companywide views of the employed or and HR analytics along with social business and human collaboration tools to help organizations maximize were based on commercial business software prod- employee growth and performance. Management believed SuccessFactors was superior because it worked well but only up to a point because they provided an easy to-use and customizable user inter- t data from face that would support employee and management one system could not be cor thined easily with data self-service using the system. Successfactors also for more porting and tal- Integrated with other SAP products and third-party mysis or for obtaining a complete picture products. Conagra implemented My Recipe in three phase did manage the data so tik over a 15-month period. During the first phase. com- plated In mid-2013, Conagra upgraded the overall reports together manual user interface and implemented the Success Earning and Succession . Development crit mod- Have 2013, the648 (3 of 3) 56.7% 652 Part Four Building and Managing Systems bottom line. Everyone is now able to see if the right problems? What was the business impact of people are in place throughout the organization. these problems? Ken Murphy, 'ConAgra Foods Fine-Tunes Recipe for 13-15 List and describe the information require- Enhanced HR," SAP Insider Profiles, October 1, 2015; www. ments of My Recipe. sonagra.com, ace essed February 21, 2016; www.successfictors com, accessed February 21,2016; and "ConAgra Foods: Food Leader 13-16 What types of systema-building methods and Finds Right Recipe to Drive Change Management with Success Pac tools did ConAgra use for building its system? or Solutions, "SAP, 2015. 13-17 What steps did ConAgra take to make sure the My Recipe was successful? CASE STUDY QUESTIONS 13-18 What were the benefits of the new system? 13-14 Analyze ConAgra's problems with its old sys- How did it change operational activities and tems. What management, organization, and decision making at ConAgra ? How successful technology factors were responsible for these was this system solution? MyLab MIS Go to the Assignments section of MyLab MIS to complete these writing exercises. 13-19 Describe four system conversion strategies 13-20 Describe the role of end users in developing systems using the traditional systems life cycle, prototyping application software packages, and end-user development.Chapter 18 Building Information Systems 551 implemented SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analyt- ica, Workforce Planning, Recruiting Marketing, and customized, provide access to ciaployce performance Recruiting Management modules. In the final phase, and career data in a way that is casy to understand completed in mid-2014, ConAgra implemented a Suc- Ease of use is further promoted by built-in remind- Cess Factors Compensation module and an update cra. For instance, a manager viewing an employee's to SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, including objectives might be alerted that the employee has an the functionality for performance rating calibration. upcoming talent review. By centralizing employee (Calibration is a process for gaining greater consis- data and making the data more easily available, the tency in how performance evaluation ratings are company is able to acc how each employee fits into delivered.) The new SuccessFactors system replaced to individual, team, and companywide plans involv- eight legacy human resource systems, substantially ing performance, succession, and development. In reduced the amount of HR data stored in manual other words, the system makes it possible for human files, and provided new tools for managers and resources to operate more strategically and align employees to obtain information and reports directly ConAgra's workforce more precisely with the overall from the system on their own. goals of the firm. The My Recipe team selected implementation It was not casy to develop a fully integrated sys target dates that coincide with the time of year the tem with common companywide processes. ConAgra specified processes were typically performed. For had to spend considerable time identifying and example, the rollout of the Success Factors Succession I evaluating its existing processes and deciding which & Development software was timed for when the should be kept and which would need to be changed company conducted its annual talent review. Rolling The processes had to be mapped against the business processes supported by the SuccessFactors software. out the system in stages kept the project alive and relevant, and staff were able to easily understand how It was important to know what each of ConAgra's processes would look like when the SuccessFactors one module built upon the next. The project time- lines also facilitated adoption of the system because system was implemented and the new system ran in the cloud. users were exposed from early on to a one-stop shop Another challenge was dealing with analytics and for human resources and became increasingly inter- reporting. Reporting was difficult when ConAgra's ested in seeing the system completed. System log systems were fragmented because it was so difficult records show that the average HR user accesses some to assemble the required data from so many differ- aspect of the SuccessFactors solution about 100 times ent sources. When the company realized how much per year. When ConAgra had fragmented HR sys- more useful and retrievable human resources data tems, there was never that amount of manager and the new system would produce, the project was redi- employee interactions with those systems. rected to pay more attention to reporting and ana- Once fully implemented, My Recipe made it lyrics and to make sure the system was designed to possible for ConAgra to capture, store and share deliver the data required for this purpose. succession planning, talent review, and other data ConAgra harnessed the expertise of Pricewa- that were previously inaccessible and impossible to terhouseCoopers (PwC) consultants for the imple- share. It empowered employees to proactively track mentation. They were able to quickly learn about tasks, performance, career growth, and opportuni- ConAgra's needs and apply that knowledge along ties on their own, and it standardized HIR business with their expertise to the project. For example, Pw processes throughout the employee life cycle. The made themselves experts in ConAgra's compensation new system makes it possible for HR staff to focus on structure and used that knowledge to configure the workforce planning issues instead of on tactical day- system accordingly. They also brought to bear their to-day employee management and recordkeeping expertise in cloud systems projects. My Recipe also eliminated eight legacy HR systems How much has the new Successfactors system and their associated administrative burdens and helped ConAgra? According to KC Bradley, ConAgra inefficiencies Director of Talent Management, Successfactors has One of the new system Improvements is the abil- helped take HR to the next level at her firm. The as helped f conversations between ity to link a processed in Conagra's core HR system; to a tile on managers and employees and has armed manas the Success Factors home nomploves condot ces to view their payroll records directly from My Recipe. Other home
