ConAgra Foods, Inc. Upgrades Human Resources Applications, Gains New Flexibility While Reducing IT Complexity and Management Costs
 
 

ConAgra Foods, Inc. Upgrades Human Resources Applications, Gains New Flexibility While Reducing IT Complexity and Management Costs

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ConAgra Foods, Inc. is one of North America’s leading food companies, with its brands used in 97% of America’s households. Consumers find Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender, Orville Redenbacher, PAM, Peter Pan, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim, Snack Pack, and many other ConAgra Foods brands in grocery, convenience, mass merchandise, and club stores. ConAgra Foods also has a strong business-to-business presence, supplying frozen potato and sweet potato products as well as other vegetable, spice, and grain products to a variety of well-known restaurants, foodservice operators, and commercial customers.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from ConAgra Foods, Inc.

  • “With Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 applications, we are creating a strong foundation that positions us to transform human resources within our organization to a strategic enabler, supporting the company’s acquisition and product development strategies. As important, we have reduced application customizations by 85%, which delivers immediate cost and time savings.” – Bryon Langenfeld, Program Director, IT, ConAgra Foods, Inc. Solution: Specialized Partner

  • Upgrade the company’s legacy HR system to advance the international food manufacturer’s goal of transforming HR from primarily an administrative function to a strategic enabler that supports the company’s vision for growth, including acquisitions and the development of patentable food-products, such as Healthy Choice Café Steamers
  • Support aggressive company growth and new types of benefits programs, including health savings accounts
  • Eliminate heavy customizations in the company’s PeopleSoft Enterprise HR applications to reduce IT complexity and costs
  • Promote developing human capital in a manner consistent with company’s goals for its private label, national food brands, and commercial food production operations
  • Ensure continued compliance with regulatory requirements related to benefits, payroll, and other HR functions

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Worked with Oracle Partner TCS to upgrade to Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.1 to continue to improve HR process efficiency and employee convenience through self-service capabilities, as well as to support new benefits options, such as health savings accounts
  • Gained a modern platform with expanded flexibility and functionality that ensures HR systems can support a one-company approach for performance and incentives, commitment to diversity and inclusive culture, and core operating principles of simplicity, accountability, and collaboration
  • Provided a foundation that enables ConAgra Foods to effectively onboard employees from acquired food companies to expand its network of nationally recognized food brands as well as its private label business
  • Eliminated 85% of application customizations, significantly reducing the time and costs required to maintain and upgrade the system and ensuring data accuracy
  • Enabled employees to view and print their own paystubs, reducing processing and postage costs and paper use, and improving employee convenience
  • Facilitated compliance with ever-changing HR-related regulatory requirements by using updated applications
  • Improved reporting capability with Oracle Discoverer, enabling the company to rapidly validate time and payroll
  • Enabled the use electronic data interchange to expedite invoice processing and payments to the company’s talent management vendors and benefits administrators—automating core processes for greater efficiency and cost effectiveness

Why Oracle

The upgrade to Oracle’s PeopleSoft 9.1 was more like a new deployment than a simple upgrade, according to Bryon Langenfeld, Program Director, IT, ConAgra Foods. For this reason, the company evaluated solutions from other vendors. PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 proved to be the most cost-effective and feature-rich option. As important, remaining on the PeopleSoft platform minimized change management requirements.

Partner

Oracle Partner Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) played an instrumental role in the upgrade process, spanning planning, design, implementation and, importantly, change management. The resulting solution has yielded important benefits, including improved process efficiency, as well as a more valuable total ownership experience.

“The PeopleSoft 9.1 project marked the start of a strategic relationship between ConAgra Foods and TCS that continues to this day as we seek to leverage additional functionality and optimize the value of our investment,” Langenfeld said.