550 Part Four Building and Managing Systems

ConAgra’s Recipe for a Better Human Resources System

Do you have Chef Boyardee Ravioli or Orville That all changed in 2013 when the company
Redenbacher popcorn in your pantry or Healthy decided to retire most of its existing HR systems and
Choice or Banquet chicken nuggets in your freezer? implement a comprehensive talent management sys-
If so, you’re one of the 99 percent of U.S. households tem that was integrated with its on-premises core HR
that use ConAgra food products. ConAgra Foods Inc., system. The talent management system consisted of
headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is one of North integrated modules that ran on a cloud-based plat-
America’s largest food companies, providing quick, form. ConAgra called the project to build the new tal-
convenient meals, tasty treats, and snacks with brands ent management system “My Recipe.”
such as Libbys, Banquet, LaChoy, Hunts, Healthy A major objective of My Recipe was to store and
Choice, and Blue Bonnet. Thirty-two of ConAgra’s share all workforce data in a single central, inte-
brands account for more than $100 million in annual grated cloud-based system. Another was to reduce
retail sales. data redundancies, complexity, and operational effi-
ConAgra relies on 33,000 employees to ensure ciencies by centralizing the data so they appeared to
that supermarket and grocery shelves are stocked be coming from one source. Another was to provide
with its products, and management considers its user-friendly tools and processes that made it easier
human resources to be an essential ingredient for 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 an
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 fragmented information and could not ware, succession planning, talent management,
support companywide views of the employee or and HR analytics along with social business and
human resources processes. Some of these systems collaboration tools to help organizations maximize
were based on commercial business software prod- employee growth and performance. Management
ucts, and others were homegrown. These systems 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-
were not integrated. That meant that data from face that would support employee and management
one system could not be combined easily with data self-service using the system. SuccessFactors also
from another for more insightful reporting and tal- integrated with other SAP products and third-party
ent analysis or for obtaining a complete picture of products.
employees. There was no central system to house ConAgra implemented My Recipe in three phases
and manage the data so HR staff often had to extract over a 15-month period. During the first phase, com-
information from multiple systems and piece pleted in mid-2013, ConAgra upgraded the overall
reports together manually. The company also had to user interface and implemented the SuccessFactors
pay for multiple information systems teams to sup- Learning and Succession & Development mod-
port these systems. ules. In phase two, completed in late 2013, the firm
 Chapter 13 Building Information Systems 551

implemented SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analyt- customized, provide access to employee performance
ics, Workforce Planning, Recruiting Marketing, and and career data in a way that is easy to understand.
Recruiting Management modules. In the final phase, Ease of use is further promoted by built-in remind-
completed in mid-2014, ConAgra implemented a Suc- ers. For instance, a manager viewing an employee’s
cessFactors Compensation module and an update objectives might be alerted that the employee has an
to SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, including upcoming talent review. By centralizing employee
the functionality for performance rating calibration. data and making the data more easily available, the
(Calibration is a process for gaining greater consis- company is able to see how each employee fits into
tency in how performance evaluation ratings are to individual, team, and companywide plans involv-
delivered.) The new SuccessFactors system replaced ing performance, succession, and development. In
eight legacy human resource systems, substantially other words, the system makes it possible for human
reduced the amount of HR data stored in manual resources to operate more strategically and align
files, and provided new tools for managers and ConAgra’s workforce more precisely with the overall
employees to obtain information and reports directly goals of the firm.
from the system on their own. It was not easy to develop a fully integrated sys-
The My Recipe team selected implementation tem with common companywide processes. ConAgra
target dates that coincide with the time of year the had to spend considerable time identifying and
specified processes were typically performed. For evaluating its existing processes and deciding which
example, the rollout of the SuccessFactors Succession should be kept and which would need to be changed.
& Development software was timed for when the The processes had to be mapped against the business
company conducted its annual talent review. Rolling processes supported by the SuccessFactors software.
out the system in stages kept the project alive and It was important to know what each of ConAgra’s
relevant, and staff were able to easily understand how processes would look like when the SuccessFactors
one module built upon the next. The project time- system was implemented and the new system ran in
lines also facilitated adoption of the system because 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 lytics 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 HR business with their expertise to the project. For example, PwC
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’s
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
ity to link an employee’s payroll records (which are system has helped facilitate conversations between
processed in ConAgra’s core HR system) to a tile on managers and employees and has armed manag-
the SuccessFactors home screen, allowing employ- ers with information they can articulate to higher
ees to view their payroll records directly from My management about how each employee contributes
Recipe. Other home screen tiles, which can be easily to the organization’s business goals and affects the
552 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?
Sources: 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.
conagra.com, accessed February 21, 2016; www.successfactors. 13-16 What types of systems-building methods and
com, accessed February 21,2016; and “ConAgra Foods: Food Leader
tools did ConAgra use for building its system?
Finds Right Recipe to Drive Change Management with SuccessFac-
tors 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.