Campbell Soup Goes to School on Supply Chain
Campbell Soup Co. said it has made “significant progress” in identifying issues impacting supply chain management in the year following the launch of a partnership with technology-driven leadership development company CorpU.
Worldwide, Campbell’s supply chain leaders have used CorpU’s cloud-based software to collaborate and gain insights from supply chain experts at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, the company said. They have also leveraged real-time analytics to identify trends across thousands of employee interactions to dissolve functional silos and solve challenges more effectively.
“CorpU has been a game-changing partner as we continue our journey to transform our global supply chain,” said Daniela Vonghia, Campbell's vice president of supply chain business solutions for the Americas. “The self-paced, multi-model learning experience engaged employees across all generations, roles and locations. With CorpU’s collaborative, team-based approach, we can measure individual learning outcomes in terms of how much participants understand and how likely they are to take action based on what they learned.”
With real-time data in hand, Campbell’s supply chain leaders identified “network champions,” who tapped effectively into co-workers across silos, as well as “network disrupters,” whose poor understanding of tasks impeded productivity.
“Industry trends are increasingly driven by consumers, such that brands and retailers must use technology to optimize supply chains to satisfy many needs simultaneously,” said Alan Todd, CorpU's chief executive officer. “Campbell is arming employees with software that fosters smart collaboration and data that gives leaders an inside view into organizational efficiency.”
CorpU is designed to help executives anticipate challenges and make decisions. CorpU Analytics also helps corporate leaders evaluate and iterate strategies if their teams are having difficulty executing them.
On the front end, CorpU is used to generate cross-functional collaboration and learning best practices directly from faculty at Smeal College, which specializes in supply chain. CorpU also uses machine learning and natural language processing to drive a dashboard of analytics to inform strategy development and execution.
Changes in the consumer packaged food market have affected Campbell’s. Last month, the company announced a strategic reorganization that included naming Luca Mignini chief operating officer and creating a new accelerator unit to drive growth.