Dunkin’ Donuts has a strong following of customers around the world who rely on the restaurantchain’ s coffee, donuts, and other baked goods to get their day started. Established in 1950, Dunkin’ Donutsstill uses the original proprietary coffee blend recipe created by its founder William Rosenburg, but whatstarted as a small donut shop in Quincy, Massachusetts, has grown into a global business generating morethan $800 million in revenue in 2015. And as the restaurant chain has grown, its business operations havebecome increasingly sophisticated.Today, Dunkin’ Donuts franchises are backed up by complex supply chain managed by NationalDCP (NDCP) the exclusive supply chain management cooperative for more than 8,900 Dunkin’ Donutsstores in the United States an 51 other countries. Founded as a membership cooperative I 2012 with themerger of five regional food and beverage operating companies, NDCP’ s mission is to support the dailyoperations of Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees and facilitate their growth and expansion plans. The companyemploys 1,70 people and maintain seven regional distribution center along with another 32 logistics hubs.Recently, NDCP began a massive multiyear project dubbed “ Project Fresh start,” to consolidate andupgrade it systems and transform it business processes throughout every area of the company—fromaccounting to customer service to warehousing and distribution. The goals of the project are to improvecustomer service, lower costs, and create supply chain efficiencies through inventory- an ordermanagement improvements. According to Darrel Riekena, CIO at NDCP, the company began the process basking “what capabilities and corresponding systems were needed to drive business process changes usingleading-edge technologies, without a lot of customization.NDCP spent considerable time researching an evaluating implementation consulting partners andtechnology providers before opting to implement SAP’ Business Suite in partnership with DeloitteConsulting. NDC selected the SAP system as the underlying technology for it business transformationbecause of SAP’s track record an experience with wholesale distribution. SAP’ s software also offered NDCPthe analytics and reporting tools the company felt were critical to supporting their plans for growthAccording to Riekena, it was essential for the company to choose a technology platform that was flexibleand could serve as the foundation for the company’ s future expansion Deloitte was chosen as NDCP’ simplementation partner because it offered an extensive background in process redesign and a provenproject methodology develop through years of experience in the wholesale distribution industry.One of the first things Deloitte did during the implementation was to work with NDCP executives todefine a business case for the project, which was used to establish set of objectives and success criteria.Then according to Deloitte Consulting’s Jerry Hoberman, they defined the scoop of the project to meetthose business objectives. Once the scope was set, the project team members worked together to set anaggressive but realistic two-year project plan.According to Riekena, an important contribution from Deloitte— outside of its technicalexpertise— was it framework for change management and communication which helped ensure that NDCPwas effectively reaching out to all of its stakeholders throughout the project “ We recognized right off thebat that effective change management was critical for the success of the project,” Riekena says. “Leveragingmultiple channels to reach all of the stakeholders, we took advantage of Dunkin’ Brands training programs,launched a comprehensive communications effort, and promoted face-to-face interactions with franchisestore managers and field operations teams whenever possible.”Unlike many companies that undertake a major system upgrade, NDCP was willing to change manyof its business processes in order to truly transform its business, but Deloitte and NDCP also placed apriority on working within NDCP’s culture— a balanced approach the recently led to the successfuldeployment of the new SAP system in the first of the company’s four regions. As the system is rolled outacross the remaining regions, more franchisees will see the benefits of NDCP’s careful planning andimplementation efforts— from better demand forecasting and inventory management tools toimprovements in NDCP’s customer service delivered by a centralized staff who will have immediate accessto customer histories and will be able to provide real-time updates on order status and How important do you think the communication and change management aspects of this projectwere? Why do you think so many companies underestimate the importance of those facets of anenterprise-level project? What are some of the risks for a company that chooses to make changes to so many parts of itsbusiness and underlying technology at once? What are some of the things a company could do tomitigate those risks?
Dunkin’ Donuts has a strong following of customers around the world who rely on the restaurant
chain’ s coffee, donuts, and other baked goods to get their day started. Established in 1950, Dunkin’ Donuts
still uses the original proprietary coffee blend recipe created by its founder William Rosenburg, but what
started as a small donut shop in Quincy, Massachusetts, has grown into a global business generating more
than $800 million in revenue in 2015. And as the restaurant chain has grown, its business operations have
become increasingly sophisticated.
Today, Dunkin’ Donuts franchises are backed up by complex supply chain managed by National
DCP (NDCP) the exclusive supply chain management cooperative for more than 8,900 Dunkin’ Donuts
stores in the United States an 51 other countries. Founded as a membership cooperative I 2012 with the
merger of five regional food and beverage operating companies, NDCP’ s mission is to support the daily
operations of Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees and facilitate their growth and expansion plans. The company
employs 1,70 people and maintain seven regional distribution center along with another 32 logistics hubs.
Recently, NDCP began a massive multiyear project dubbed “ Project Fresh start,” to consolidate and
upgrade it systems and transform it business processes throughout every area of the company—from
accounting to customer service to warehousing and distribution. The goals of the project are to improve
customer service, lower costs, and create supply chain efficiencies through inventory- an ordermanagement improvements. According to Darrel Riekena, CIO at NDCP, the company began the process b
asking “what capabilities and corresponding systems were needed to drive business process changes using
leading-edge technologies, without a lot of customization.
NDCP spent considerable time researching an evaluating implementation consulting partners and
technology providers before opting to implement SAP’ Business Suite in partnership with Deloitte
Consulting. NDC selected the SAP system as the underlying technology for it business transformation
because of SAP’s track record an experience with wholesale distribution. SAP’ s software also offered NDCP
the analytics and reporting tools the company felt were critical to supporting their plans for growth
According to Riekena, it was essential for the company to choose a technology platform that was flexible
and could serve as the foundation for the company’ s future expansion Deloitte was chosen as NDCP’ s
implementation partner because it offered an extensive background in process redesign and a proven
project methodology develop through years of experience in the wholesale distribution industry.One of the first things Deloitte did during the implementation was to work with NDCP executives to
define a business case for the project, which was used to establish set of objectives and success criteria.
Then according to Deloitte Consulting’s Jerry Hoberman, they defined the scoop of the project to meet
those business objectives. Once the scope was set, the project team members worked together to set an
aggressive but realistic two-year project plan.
According to Riekena, an important contribution from Deloitte— outside of its technical
expertise— was it framework for change management and communication which helped ensure that NDCP
was effectively reaching out to all of its stakeholders throughout the project “ We recognized right off the
bat that effective change management was critical for the success of the project,” Riekena says. “Leveraging
multiple channels to reach all of the stakeholders, we took advantage of Dunkin’ Brands training programs,
launched a comprehensive communications effort, and promoted face-to-face interactions with franchise
store managers and field operations teams whenever possible.”
Unlike many companies that undertake a major system upgrade, NDCP was willing to change many
of its business processes in order to truly transform its business, but Deloitte and NDCP also placed a
priority on working within NDCP’s culture— a balanced approach the recently led to the successful
deployment of the new SAP system in the first of the company’s four regions. As the system is rolled out
across the remaining regions, more franchisees will see the benefits of NDCP’s careful planning and
implementation efforts— from better demand forecasting and inventory management tools to
improvements in NDCP’s customer service delivered by a centralized staff who will have immediate access
to customer histories and will be able to provide real-time updates on order status and
How important do you think the communication and change management aspects of this project
were? Why do you think so many companies underestimate the importance of those facets of an
enterprise-level project?
What are some of the risks for a company that chooses to make changes to so many parts of its
business and underlying technology at once? What are some of the things a company could do to
mitigate those risks?
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