Maple Leaf Takes a Big Leap Forward
Top-performing consumer goods companies have three things in common: strong brands, leading market share and a competitive cost structure. Maple Leaf Foods had two out of the three covered. Headquarted in Toronto, its portfolio includes many leading national brands such as Maple Leaf, Schneiders and Dempster’s. As for market share, Maple Leaf holds the No. 1 position in Canada’s fresh bakery product, fresh pasta, and chilled prepared meats categories. It also holds No. 1 spots in other categories throughout North America and the United Kingdom.
However, after 15 years of growth by way of acquiring multiple businesses — many of which were made up of several acquisitions themselves — Maple Leaf found that operating in a disjointed environment created unnecessary complexity. After all, running 35 separate ERP systems across the company does not lend itself to the competitive cost structure that is needed to win in today’s consumer goods market.
“The level of unnecessary complexity reached a point of becoming an impediment to continuing to deliver service excellence for our customers,” says Richard Rivard, vice president Information Solutions (IS) – business partner, Maple Leaf Foods.
“Customers had to deal with the many different processes across business units,” continues Michael Correa, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods. “Even though they were dealing with a Maple Leaf company, we operated in very different ways.”
So what’s a company to do? Maple Leaf found its answer in a strategic transformational effort that is implementing common business processes across all business units. The program is enabled by a massive and rapid ERP consolidation. In short, the company is whittling down 35 legacy systems into a single instance of SAP ERP that would serve as the foundation for more than 90 sites across three continents. The end result is expected to lead to efficient process improvements and cost reductions as well as improved information management and decision-making capabilities.
The team in charge of the transformation (see box right) named the effort “Leapfrog” because it plans to jump over all legacy systems and processes and land on one set of common processes.
“In terms of competitive advantage we were at the back of the pack and wanted to jump — or leapfrog — to the front of the line as soon as possible,” says Katya Forsyth, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods.
“Leapfrog is not an incremental step,” adds Andreas Liris, vice president IS – Project Management Office (PMO) and Development, Maple Leaf Foods. “It is from zero to 100 in one jump.”
Working Together
Leapfrog is one of many business-focused strategic initiatives underway to help Maple Leaf strengthen its competitive advantage. The unique aspect of Leapfrog is that the IS team is driving the project on behalf of the corporation. IS is accountable for the project management, the schedule and the standard solution and process deliverables, but the business units are ultimately accountable for the success of the transformation as well as the acceptance and adoption of the solution. The business units will own the solution when the project is complete, thus it is important that they contribute to the build. To that end, three Business Partners, three Process Leads and the PMO lead sit on the IS leadership team.
IS Business Partners are also members of the management committee of business units, in which they provide IS leadership and act as the conduit to corporate information solutions. In a way, they are the business unit CIOs.
Meanwhile, Process Leads act on behalf of the corporation process owners to ensure consistency of processes and systems across all business units. They maintain a close relationship with the matrix and process owners in preparation for the transition of responsibility from IS back into the business post implementation.
Governance of the program belongs to Maple Leaf’s Senior Leadership Team, which is made up of the two Chief Operating Officers, the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, who is the executive sponsor of the program, and Chief Information Officer Jeff Hutchinson. Together they approve all project changes. However, because this is a vanilla implementation, the volume of change is low.
Senior executive engagement is critical to the project’s success. For example, business unit presidents are required to participate in sponsor meetings at least weekly where decisions are made and risks are assessed. They also generate communications to their respective organizations, ensuring engagement and transparency relative to Leapfrog.
That brings us to another key component of the project: Change management. Accomplishing the goals of the program is fundamentally dependent on how Maple Leaf manages and executes change. For that reason, the program has a team dedicated to change management that works with each business to identify and resolve change impacts before a go-live.
“Change management is the oil around all the moving parts of a transition,” says Bryan Cox, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods. “When we do a better job of change management, the transition is smoother. Otherwise we find ourselves grinding gears.”
Maple Leaf also utilizes an enterprise wide Key User Network that is critical in supporting readiness, training and support at deployment.
“Our Key Users have been instrumental during our deployments by providing input into strategies to overcome change impacts, build processes, provide end-user training and support the business through cut-over. This experience gives them significant expertise, and as such, they are seen as the local ‘go-to’ people. We will continue to tap this network for these insights and change management support as we optimize,” says Monika Piotrowski, vice president IS – business partner, Maple Leaf Foods, who leads the Key User Network.
Supporting Roles
Behind every process change project lays an enabling tool and, for Leapfrog, that tool is SAP ERP, which is helping to continually improve the company’s core processes, including financials, human resources, manufacturing, sales, etc. In addition, IBM serves as the Leapfrog program integrator.
“We are changing how we do things — technology will support the processes,” says Correa. Adds Rivard, “Implementing SAP is a critical component in our transformation strategy that is aimed at driving common processes, standardization and simplification across the organization.”
Slightly more than two years into the program, Maple Leaf has completed 54 go-lives out of the box, with less customization than most other organizations. Plus, more than six work streams are now active, including two Bakery regions in Canada and one in the UK, the Prepared Meats business, Maple Leaf Agri-Farms, and business analytics company-wide. Overall, the vanilla implementation is on schedule and on budget.
Early benefits include sharing more efficient processes across the many businesses of Maple Leaf as well as simplifying similar processes. For example, Human Resources was business unit-based, but it is now Maple Leaf-based. Therefore, support across the company is more easily provided. And as Maple Leaf turns legacy systems off, the burden of maintenance, licensing and so on will be relieved.
“The depth and extent that we are successfully deploying is going extremely well — this can be attributed to our methodology and structure,” says Piotrowski.
The Road Ahead
At slightly more than halfway through the four-year program, the IS team is just scraping the surface of opportunity. Its approach is to implement the solution quickly, even if that only meets 80 percent of the company’s needs. Then go back later and optimize. Still, the team is certain that after this initiative is completed, the company will be in a position to leverage size and scale to drive profitability, market share and growth, as well as return on investor investment.
“After Leapfrog, the very hardworking smart people at Maple Leaf will be able to put their energy into new ideas and innovation — the power of that will be unbelievable,” closes Forsyth.
Three Golden Rules
Senior Director IS and Business Partner David Aird urges consumer goods companies to “create golden rules that make sense to your organization and stick to them”. Here are Leapfrog’s golden rules:
The Transformation Team
An Information Solutions team is leading Maple Leaf Foods’ enterprise transformation. The team touts technical skills as well as business savvy to drive results with business partners. The team, pictured here, includes:
From Left: Michael Correa, VP IS - Process Lead; Richard Rivard, VP IS - Business Partner; Monika Piotrowski, VP IS - Business Partner; Andreas Liris, VP IS - PMO and Development; David Aird, Senior Director IS - Business Partner; Katya Forsyth, VP IS - Process Lead; Bryan Cox, VP IS - Process Lead; and Jeff Hutchinson, CIO (not pictured)
However, after 15 years of growth by way of acquiring multiple businesses — many of which were made up of several acquisitions themselves — Maple Leaf found that operating in a disjointed environment created unnecessary complexity. After all, running 35 separate ERP systems across the company does not lend itself to the competitive cost structure that is needed to win in today’s consumer goods market.
“The level of unnecessary complexity reached a point of becoming an impediment to continuing to deliver service excellence for our customers,” says Richard Rivard, vice president Information Solutions (IS) – business partner, Maple Leaf Foods.
“Customers had to deal with the many different processes across business units,” continues Michael Correa, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods. “Even though they were dealing with a Maple Leaf company, we operated in very different ways.”
So what’s a company to do? Maple Leaf found its answer in a strategic transformational effort that is implementing common business processes across all business units. The program is enabled by a massive and rapid ERP consolidation. In short, the company is whittling down 35 legacy systems into a single instance of SAP ERP that would serve as the foundation for more than 90 sites across three continents. The end result is expected to lead to efficient process improvements and cost reductions as well as improved information management and decision-making capabilities.
The team in charge of the transformation (see box right) named the effort “Leapfrog” because it plans to jump over all legacy systems and processes and land on one set of common processes.
“In terms of competitive advantage we were at the back of the pack and wanted to jump — or leapfrog — to the front of the line as soon as possible,” says Katya Forsyth, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods.
“Leapfrog is not an incremental step,” adds Andreas Liris, vice president IS – Project Management Office (PMO) and Development, Maple Leaf Foods. “It is from zero to 100 in one jump.”
Working Together
Leapfrog is one of many business-focused strategic initiatives underway to help Maple Leaf strengthen its competitive advantage. The unique aspect of Leapfrog is that the IS team is driving the project on behalf of the corporation. IS is accountable for the project management, the schedule and the standard solution and process deliverables, but the business units are ultimately accountable for the success of the transformation as well as the acceptance and adoption of the solution. The business units will own the solution when the project is complete, thus it is important that they contribute to the build. To that end, three Business Partners, three Process Leads and the PMO lead sit on the IS leadership team.
IS Business Partners are also members of the management committee of business units, in which they provide IS leadership and act as the conduit to corporate information solutions. In a way, they are the business unit CIOs.
Meanwhile, Process Leads act on behalf of the corporation process owners to ensure consistency of processes and systems across all business units. They maintain a close relationship with the matrix and process owners in preparation for the transition of responsibility from IS back into the business post implementation.
Governance of the program belongs to Maple Leaf’s Senior Leadership Team, which is made up of the two Chief Operating Officers, the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, who is the executive sponsor of the program, and Chief Information Officer Jeff Hutchinson. Together they approve all project changes. However, because this is a vanilla implementation, the volume of change is low.
Senior executive engagement is critical to the project’s success. For example, business unit presidents are required to participate in sponsor meetings at least weekly where decisions are made and risks are assessed. They also generate communications to their respective organizations, ensuring engagement and transparency relative to Leapfrog.
That brings us to another key component of the project: Change management. Accomplishing the goals of the program is fundamentally dependent on how Maple Leaf manages and executes change. For that reason, the program has a team dedicated to change management that works with each business to identify and resolve change impacts before a go-live.
“Change management is the oil around all the moving parts of a transition,” says Bryan Cox, vice president IS – process lead, Maple Leaf Foods. “When we do a better job of change management, the transition is smoother. Otherwise we find ourselves grinding gears.”
Maple Leaf also utilizes an enterprise wide Key User Network that is critical in supporting readiness, training and support at deployment.
“Our Key Users have been instrumental during our deployments by providing input into strategies to overcome change impacts, build processes, provide end-user training and support the business through cut-over. This experience gives them significant expertise, and as such, they are seen as the local ‘go-to’ people. We will continue to tap this network for these insights and change management support as we optimize,” says Monika Piotrowski, vice president IS – business partner, Maple Leaf Foods, who leads the Key User Network.
Supporting Roles
Behind every process change project lays an enabling tool and, for Leapfrog, that tool is SAP ERP, which is helping to continually improve the company’s core processes, including financials, human resources, manufacturing, sales, etc. In addition, IBM serves as the Leapfrog program integrator.
“We are changing how we do things — technology will support the processes,” says Correa. Adds Rivard, “Implementing SAP is a critical component in our transformation strategy that is aimed at driving common processes, standardization and simplification across the organization.”
Slightly more than two years into the program, Maple Leaf has completed 54 go-lives out of the box, with less customization than most other organizations. Plus, more than six work streams are now active, including two Bakery regions in Canada and one in the UK, the Prepared Meats business, Maple Leaf Agri-Farms, and business analytics company-wide. Overall, the vanilla implementation is on schedule and on budget.
Early benefits include sharing more efficient processes across the many businesses of Maple Leaf as well as simplifying similar processes. For example, Human Resources was business unit-based, but it is now Maple Leaf-based. Therefore, support across the company is more easily provided. And as Maple Leaf turns legacy systems off, the burden of maintenance, licensing and so on will be relieved.
“The depth and extent that we are successfully deploying is going extremely well — this can be attributed to our methodology and structure,” says Piotrowski.
The Road Ahead
At slightly more than halfway through the four-year program, the IS team is just scraping the surface of opportunity. Its approach is to implement the solution quickly, even if that only meets 80 percent of the company’s needs. Then go back later and optimize. Still, the team is certain that after this initiative is completed, the company will be in a position to leverage size and scale to drive profitability, market share and growth, as well as return on investor investment.
“After Leapfrog, the very hardworking smart people at Maple Leaf will be able to put their energy into new ideas and innovation — the power of that will be unbelievable,” closes Forsyth.
Three Golden Rules
Senior Director IS and Business Partner David Aird urges consumer goods companies to “create golden rules that make sense to your organization and stick to them”. Here are Leapfrog’s golden rules:
- Don’t make changes to the software. Make it as much of an “out-of-the-box” vanilla installation as possible.
- Adapt processes to meet technology best practices.
- Our mandate is to change our processes, not the software.
- Only put clean data in! The quality of the data we enter is critical and in real time. We have to do it NOW, and we have to do it RIGHT.
The Transformation Team
An Information Solutions team is leading Maple Leaf Foods’ enterprise transformation. The team touts technical skills as well as business savvy to drive results with business partners. The team, pictured here, includes:
From Left: Michael Correa, VP IS - Process Lead; Richard Rivard, VP IS - Business Partner; Monika Piotrowski, VP IS - Business Partner; Andreas Liris, VP IS - PMO and Development; David Aird, Senior Director IS - Business Partner; Katya Forsyth, VP IS - Process Lead; Bryan Cox, VP IS - Process Lead; and Jeff Hutchinson, CIO (not pictured)