Automatic Supply Chain
Currently at either end of the supply chain - supplier and customer - the processes Arnott's uses are the same ones that have been in use for many, many years. It still uses paper purchase orders. Goods still arrive and are manually receipted in and checked for quality. At the customer end the processes for taking orders and delivering stock to store are just as outmoded.
"Those have all now fundamentally got to change, but there isn't anyone inherently in the business who understands how to re-engineer those processes and then apply technology to them, to enable us to participate in collaborative commerce," Sutton says. "So in our case, because IT tends to all be about process and if you have IT people that have come cross industry they're used to major process change-type projects, the leadership team are looking at me and my team to deliver process leadership."
Since the team accepts it cannot do everything at once, part of Sutton's role is to decide which projects will give Arnott's the greatest "bang for its buck", she says.
With those decisions made, the next step is to define all the new processes underlying the new business model, in extensive detail, and win agreement from the business - and when appropriate from customers - for them. Only then will she seek the proper technology to apply to the project. "So it goes: business model first, detailed process definition next and then technology last," she says. "It's a long process. By the time the whole thing's done including all the technology, you've got to expect it's a three- to five-year journey."
During the entire course of that journey, Sutton says, effective IT governance will be vital in helping the organisation achieve its goals. "When we're talking about embarking on a program of large-scale technology change, governance is everything, because you can have monumental failures or monumental successes based on how well you manage it all," she says. (An in-depth look at IT governance starts on page 40.)When she joined Arnott's there was no IT governance structure in Arnott's locally, although there was a very ambitious program globally to set up both global and regional program offices for IT, with processes for checking investment decisions. Her job has been to help the Arnott's subsidiary catch up.
To that end Arnott's has hired a highly experienced regional program management officer (PMO), who is currently engaging with the global project to ensure the Arnott's view is being heard. The PMO is also setting up local prioritisation committees comprising the Asia Pacific leadership team, and initiating processes for resource allocation, project management, reporting, risk assessment and so on.
"And part of it has also been getting those disciplines across the business," she says. "It's not an IT issue as such, it's a total business issue. It's not just about IT governance, it's about project governance more generally and trying to get that in place.
"At the same time that's been kind of Â'overlaid' with a governance structure around architecture, which again is being driven from the US by the CTO with local pieces to it. It means we have got a way to sign off on the architectural part of the project, and if it's going to go outside standards, the process for getting that dealt with."
Her own experience and conversations with peers leave Sutton in no doubt that when IT governance fails to work it's because there is no true engagement from the leadership team. She says unless the executive is on the prioritisation committee, and is actively engaged, governance cannot work.
"I think a lot of the CIO's role is actually getting the people on the steering committees and so forth to really understand what their role is and how critical their role is, and what happens if they don't actually live the role properly. I spend a lot of time with people here doing exactly that," she says.
Like many CIOs she foresees the biggest potential barrier to progress into the future as resources - whether it be in people or capital - not being marshalled to achieving all the ambition Arnott's has as a company. Arnott's may make lots of biscuits, but it will take some pretty big bikkies to get where it is heading now.
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