• Business Process: As stated above and illustrated by the associated graphic, the basic business functions of buy, make, sell, deliver and back office, interact between and among them selves. They often take on a global dimension and connect both inside and outside of ConAgra Foods.

• Application Services: Key to past and future successes of technology enabled business transformation at ConAgra Foods is the IT eco-system and the foundation upon which IT solutions are designed, built, implemented, integrated and maintained.

ConAgra Foods IT Professionals perform as members of an elite SAP Advanced Certified Center of Expertise (CCOE), and integrate capabilities across a variety of best in class applications providers including Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and others. As IT Professionals progress in their careers, is honed through their analytical / technical design skills. A broad understanding of applications architecture along with deep expertise across a variety of application systems within the ConAgra Foods IT eco-system is gained.

• Infrastructure Services: At ConAgra Foods, data center, private/public cloud technologies and a wide variety of supporting technical infrastructure capabilities enables the Enterprise to operate securely; recover in the event of disaster; introduce change to the environment in a controlled manner; and focus upon servicing, managing and measuring IT deliver ables through the lens of business processes. By developing an understanding of the capabilities (and limits) of technical infrastructure and methods to best collaborate design efforts, IT Professionals help unlock the potential of Information Technology solutions, to positively impact business and effectively manage/solve systems problems when they occur.

• IT Process: In an era of continuous demands for added services, IT has been able to steadily evolve base technology and deliver core business improvements while actually reducing costs. Through standardized operating processes, highly agile project and program level management practices, intense focus upon controlled use of manpower, time and dollars combined with precise testing requirements to ensure quality. Success has become a predictable expectation and anticipated outcome. All ConAgra Foods IT Professionals develop extensive expertise in the use of IT processes and quality assurance at virtually every career level. While an SAP eco-system created a need for our IT Professionals at the individual contributor levels to widen their horizons, IT leaders were also witnesses, to significant changes within their roles.

IT Leaders had to evolve their focus well beyond technology to become highly engaged with other business leaders and in some cases external customers/suppliers in determining / driving / optimizing IT strategies that help enable successful business transformation and contribute to corporate growth. They now need to operate boundlessly to drive “end to end” and “design thinking” across the Enterprise. IT Leaders work closely to build strong partnerships with business executives to define SLA’s, establish aggressive organizational goals that are in line with the company’s overall strategies.

And, as always, they continue to ensure contemporary mechanisms are in place to measure results that satisfy (or exceed) customer expectations.

Today, our IT development and professional training programs go a bit outside of traditional curricula to include building “muscles” in areas such as organizational change management, business analytics, financial management,team building and communications via story telling.

In conclusion, it is critical for CIO’s to understand that when an SAP driven ecosystem is put in place for an Enterprise, the role of the IT organization needs to rapidly evolve beyond solely that of a technology provider to that of a viable business partner. To be successful in this role, IT needs to invest in building/continuously enhancing a broad set of both business process and technical skills that can drive optimized value from the power of SAP and the environment in which it sits.

See Also: Top SAP Solution Companies In Europe