Nestle Case

Nestle USA was founded in 1991 to unify and regorganize the independely operated brands of the Swiss parent company, Nestle, to introduce ecoonomies of scale and common practices . Unfortunally, years of autonomy of various Nestle brands made that nearly impossible. Though the brands now reported directely to Nestle USA, but the various divsions had geogrpahically dispeared headquarters and were free to make there on decisions (Worthen 1-2). Six years later, Nestle USA Chairmen and CEO Joe Weller set a goal of "transforming the sperate brands into one highly integragted company (Worthen 2)", a term he coined "One Nestle". Around this time Jeri Dunn, had taken the CIO at Nestle USA and set about making Weller 's vision a reality using SAP ERP. Dunn, referring to Nestles ' condition, stated, " We had no clue how much volume we were doing with a particular vendor because every factory set up their own vendor masters and purchased on their own. (Worthen 3)" This lead each Nestle brand to pay 29 different codes and prices for Vanilla across the brands(Worthen 2). Dunn believed using a common system across all Nestle USA brands, they could create savings by leverage group buying power and facilitate data sharing among the subsidiaries ( Worthen 2). Innovation the next step to help unify Nestle USA into a single unit from independently operated brands. According to the Frambach & Schillewaret Innovation Adoption model, Nestle USA was in the initiation stage of the model. The company had become aware of an innovation, began to form attitudes towards it, and evaluate the product (164). The product chosen by the CIO, to lead the innovation was the SAP ERP system. The key-decision makers overlooked was getting input and buy-in from those we were going to be directly affected by the ERP innovation. There was resistance workers who did not understand the new processes, how to use the system and hesitation to learn the new way of

Cited: Frambach, Ruud T., and Niels Schillewaert. "Organizational Innovation Adoption: A Multi-level Framework of Determinants and Opportunities for Future Research." Journal of Business Research 55 (2002): 163-67. Print. Klein, Katherine J., and Andrew P. Knight. "Innovation Implementation. Overcoming the Challenge." Current Directions in Psychological Science 14.5 (2005): 243-46. Print. Shane, Scott. Technology Strategy for Managers and Entrepreneurs. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print. Worthen, Ben. "Nestlé 's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Odyssey." CIO.com. 15 May 2002. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. .