cadbury erp implementation case study

• Implementation

3 successful ERP implementation case studies to learn from

Because of the complexities of large-scale ERP implementations, the outcomes often split evenly between success and failure. For any business aiming for a successful ERP implementation, understanding ERP success stories can highlight what’s possible when an ERP project is well-executed.

ERP case study #1: Cadbury – A Sweet Success

Our first ERP implementation case study examines Cadbury, the iconic confectioner owned by Mondelēz International. Facing rapid growth, Cadbury struggled to meet production and distribution demands efficiently. The solution came with  SAP ERP,  which enabled Cadbury to resolve these concerns.

Along with other significant changes triggered by the ERP implementation, multi-node resources management was extended throughout its supply chain, along with a complete revamping of existing warehouse and distribution processes. The consequent impacts allowed Cadbury to reduce overall operating costs , while its newly engaged supply chain produced significantly better production efficiencies throughout its manufacturing chain.

Key takeaway: A successful ERP implementation often relies on thorough requirements gathering and aligning ERP functionalities with business needs. This foundational step sets up companies like Cadbury to achieve measurable improvements in operations and cost savings.

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ERP case study #2: Nestle SA – Integration Excellence

Nestlé SA, a global food giant headquartered in Switzerland, faced challenges in integrating ERP across multiple regions, specifically at Nestlé SA, Nestlé UK and Nestlé USA.

The latter operation had been working toward complete integration of a set of ERP solutions since the late 90s, but various requirements, organizational, and policy problems had plagued the complete initiation. By the turn of the millennium, its management finally decided that a holistic re-approach to its business requirements was in order.

The result? A consolidated accounting structure, enhanced communication across the supply chain, and a more empowered workforce. By investing $200 million into ERP, Nestlé saw transformative changes in both its processes and its team dynamics.

Key takeaway:  Effective ERP integration across multiple sites demands extensive planning and coordination. Companies that commit to a unified ERP approach, like Nestlé, benefit from cohesive workflows, financial transparency, and stronger workforce morale.

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ERP case study #3: ABC Compounding – A strategic ERP shift

ABC Compounding, an Atlanta-based provider of industrial cleaning supplies, exemplifies the benefits of ERP for small to mid-sized enterprises. When ABC’s legacy ERP system could no longer support critical processes like planning and scheduling, the company chose Sage ERP X3 to meet these needs.

ABC Compounding employs about 150 people and presents an interesting study as most examples use much larger multinational companies. Myra Hager, chief information officer, had used Sage ERP X3 in a prior position and was familiar with its comprehensive manufacturing capabilities. “The time was right, and the pricing to make the switch was very competitive,” she says. A common thread among companies using ERP at the time.

With Sage ERP X3 , ABC Compounding automated work orders, enhanced inventory tracking, and streamlined customer service. The new system allowed employees to generate work orders automatically based on stock levels and orders, a significant time saver over manual data entry. Additionally, sales and service teams noted improved navigation and efficiency, critical to handling over 200 daily orders.

Key takeaway: ABC’s ERP success story illustrates how upgrading to a modern ERP system can simplify operations, increase data accessibility, and reduce reliance on multiple third-party applications, all of which contribute to cost savings and operational ease.

A successful ERP implementation can be transformative, but as these stories from Cadbury, Nestlé, and ABC Compounding show, it’s about more than just software, it’s about using ERP to redefine how a business operates .

Each of these companies tackled different challenges and unlocked new capabilities through their ERP systems, whether by streamlining supply chains, enabling data-driven decisions, or reducing operational costs.

So, where can you take this? Picture how your own organization might look if you could overcome bottlenecks, improve team alignment and enhance customer satisfaction. ERP success isn’t just for massive corporations, it’s within reach for any company ready to commit to clear goals, dedicated planning and ongoing learning.

Further recommended reading: To read about ERP implementations that didn’t go nearly as smoothly, click here .

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case study on ERP success(cadbury) and failure(hershey's)

Cadbury implemented SAP ERP successfully, reducing costs through integrated systems. However, initial rollout caused excess inventory as production was not properly coordinated. Hershey rushed its ERP implementation in 2.5 years instead of 4, sacrificing testing. This caused order fulfillment issues, lost sales of $150M, and a 25% inventory increase, showing risks of compressed schedules. Both show ERP can integrate operations but must be carefully planned to avoid disruptions. Read less

More Related Content

• 1. ERP IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDIES-SUCCESS & FAILURES
• 2. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is business management software—usually a suite of integrated applications—that a company can use to store and manage data from every stage of business, including: •Product planning, cost and development •Manufacturing •Marketing and sales •Inventory management •Shipping and payment
• 3. Functions of ERP • ERP provides an integrated real-time view of core business processes, using common databases maintained by a database management system. ERP systems track business resources— cash, raw materials, production capacity—and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll. • The applications that make up the system share data across the various departments (manufacturing, purchasing, sales, accounting, etc.) that entered the data. • ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions, and manages connections to outside stakeholders.
• 4. ERP Implementation Success
• 5. Company Background • Cadbury is a British multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelēz International. • It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Wrigley's. • Founder: John Cadbury • Founded in: 1824, Birmingham, United Kingdom Cadbury over the years.
• 6. Currently, Cadbury India operates in four categories viz. Chocolate Confectionery, Milk Food Drinks, Candy and Gum category. In the Chocolate Confectionery business, Cadbury has maintained its undisputed leadership over the years.
• 7. Key brands of Cadbury in India.
• 8. ERP Implementation
• 9. Cadbury turns out, in recent years, Kraft implemented SAP ERP 6.0 (System Analysis and Program Development) in what SAP called one of its largest global ERP implementations. Kraft credited ERP with reducing operational costs. 11,000 employees were sending data to the company's SAP solution and it was linked to 1,750 applications by 2008. That same year, Kraft aslo added SAP's master data management solution, NetWeaver, with an eye toward integrating legacy systems.
• 10. • Cadbury was left with a glut of chocolate products at the start of the year, after the installation of a new SAP-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system led to an excess of chocolate bars building up at the end of 2005. • The new U.K. computer system is part of a five-year IT transformation project, called "Probe", aimed at integrating the Cadbury Schweppes' supply chain, purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing systems on a global, SAP-based ERP platform. • Cadbury Schweppes is aiming for an ultimate savings from the Probe project, but its implementation has been far from smooth. The project was beset by problems and delays when it was first introduced in Australia in 2002.
• 11. Benefits of ERP
• 12. Benefits of ERP • Cadbury was on a fast paced growth and could not continue with the existing systems and the pace was too slow due to added inefficiencies. ERP added efficiency and guided the led all the issues fast paced growth. • The implementation of ERP brought in a new way of warehouse management system and brought in structure to branch offices and the depots. • While implementing the ERP systems, the company has built it upon the past strengths of the company thereby not losing out on its competitive
• 13. Benefits of ERP • The initial implementation took time and then the successive implementations took lesser time and cost and there is a huge advantage in saving cost while in the implementation phase itself. • The reaction from competition does not matter in this because this is not a change that was advertised to the market. This is an internal process restructuring and was a welcome change within the company which badly needed the change. • The company also has built in a robust regular feedback system to monitor the changes and check if they go according to the initial plan. The entire implementation is cross functional and hence it is important that there is a high increase in the efficiency.
• 14. Benefits of ERP • The ERP vendor was also selected from among the best in class vendors which helped the process occur in a streamlined fashion and avoided any possible chances of hiccups during the initial implementation phase. • The system has also been deployed up to the vendors. They have a portal called vendor connect where they can see their inventory movement and make plans accordingly. Hence the restructuring happens not only internally but also across to the supplier which will add on to the benefits that are accrued. • It was considered at low cost and high result implementation which by itself highlights the success and the benefits.
• 15. ERP Implementation Failures
• 16. Company Background • Hershey's is the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. • Its headquarters are in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hershey's Chocolate World. • Chocolate Business was started by Mr. Milton S. Hershey in 1876 • The Hershey Company was established in 1894 • Hershey's products are sold in about sixty countries worldwide. Hershey’s cocoa add from 1918
• 17. • Hershey's sales are roughly 80% chocolate and 20% non-chocolate. • Hershey’s Competitors include Mars, Nestle, Russell Stover, Palmer and Nabisco Hershey’s Chocolate World at Pennsylvania. Hershey’s Kisses Advertisement
• 18. ERP Implementation
• 19. To enhance company’s competitiveness and Customer Service • During late1996, the management of Hershey gave its approval to a project named Enterprise21 • For this Hershey selected SAP's R/3 ERP software, Manugistics SCM software and Seibel's CRM software and IBM Global Service so as to manage integration among these three systems. • Overall Project Cost was US $10 Million • The recommended implementation time for the project was 4 yrs. and Hershey demanded for 2.5 yrs. • Hershey decided to go with Big Bang Approach instead of phased approach.
• 21. Impact of ERP Failure
• 22. Impact of ERP Failure • Problems pertaining to order fulfillment, processing and shipping started to arise; Hershey would not be able to meet its committed date of delivery • Several of Hershey's distributors who had ordered the products could not supply them to the retailers in time, and hence lost their credibility in the market • Product inventory started to pile up and by the end of September 2000; the inventories were 25% more than the inventories during the previous year
• 23. • After Hershey’s announcement in the market about problems due to malfunctioning of the newly installed computer systems, Hershey's stock price plunged by 8% on a single day. • Hershey's failure to implement the ERP software on time cost the company US $150 million in sales. Profits for the third quarter 1999 dropped by19% and sales declined by l2%, in its 1999 annual report. Impact of ERP Failure
• 24. Reasons of Failure
• 25. Reasons of Failure • Over-squeezing implementation schedules • Big Bang Approach instead of Phased Approach • Mistake of sacrificing systems testing for the sake of expediency • Cutover Activities and Go-Live was scheduled in Hershey’s busiest business periods.
• 26. Learning from Failure
• 27. An ERP implementation project should not be forced into an unreasonable timeline. Over-squeezing implementation schedules is a sure-fire way to overlook critical issues. Testing phases are safety nets that should never be compromised. The First Lesson
• 28. Never schedule cutover during busy seasons. Even in a best-case implementation scenario, companies should still expect steep learning curves and operational performance dips. By timing cutover during slow business periods, the company gives itself more slack time to iron out systems kinks. It also gives employees more time to learn the new business processes and systems. In many cases, it is even advisable to reduce orders in and around the cutover period. This tactic is aimed at minimizing exposure to damages caused by potentially undetected errors and less-than-perfectly- trained users. The Second Lesson
• 29. “There is no doubt that 1999 was a most difficult and disappointing year for Hershey Foods Corporation. While the year got off to a slow start due to excessive retail inventories, we fully expected a strong finish in the second half of the year. Instead, the implementation of the final phase of the Corporation's enterprise-wide information system created problems in the areas of customers service, warehousing and order fulfillment. These difficulties were exacerbated by our growth in recent years which had resulted in shipping capacity constraints. As a result, Hershey's sales and earnings fell well short of expectation for the year.” - Kenneth L Wolfe (Chairman & CEO, Hershey Foods Corporation, in 1999)
• 30. REFERENCES: • http://www.scribd.com/doc/39650132/ERP- IMPLEMENTATION-AT-CADBURY%E2%80%99S • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning • http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/ERP.html • http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/lawson/kraft- cadbury-deal-means-major-erp-integration-work/?cs=38891 • http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1cb06d30-332f-11e1-a51e- 00144feabdc0.html#axzz2vdMyHJ14
• 31. Submitted by: Chitrangada Roy – 07 Saumya Saksena – 19 BFTech Semester- VI 2011-2015

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Home | ERP Implementation at Cadbury’s

Here is a short case study and success story on implementing ERP System at Cadbury’s.

Company Introduction Cadbury India is a fully owned subsidy of Kraft Foods Inc. With annual revenues of approximately $50 billion, the combined company is the world’s second largest food company, making delicious products for billions of consumers in more than 160countries. They employ approximately 140,000 people and have operations in more than 70 countries.

The ERP initiative was to bring about a completeintegration of the major processes in the business. The major processes being procurement system, finance system, the Human Resources and other departments.These were functioning in a completely decentralised manner. Cadbury’s have four branch operations and 13 manufacturing operations and each had their own systems running in isolation.

Benefits of ERP System specific to Cadbury’s

• Cadbury was on a fast paced growth and could not continue with the existing systems and the pace was too slow due to added inefficiencies down the chain. ERP implementation handled all the issues and added efficiency and guided the fast paced growth.
• Cadbury standardized the processes within the 16 locations.
• The implementation of ERP brought in a new way of warehouse management system and brought in structure to branch offices and the depots.
• The manufacturing in itself had 13 operations and each was operating in a silo. This had increased the work in progress and the integration of the processes has done well for the company.
• The ERP vendor was also selected from among the best in classvendors which helped the process occur in a streamlined fashionand avoided any possible chances of hiccups during the initial implementation phase.
• The system has also been deployed up to the vendors. They have a portal called vendor connect where they can see their inventory movement and make plans accordingly. Hence the restructuring happens not only internally but also across to the supplier which will add on to the benefits for both parties.

Selected and managed well, ERP Systems can bring extrodinary value to any organization and address many challanges being faced. If you’d like to chat about ERP systems or their selection, give ERP Advisers a call today!

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