Hershey's
Halloween Nightmare All Too Common for Supply Chain Implementations
S. McVey - November 1, 1999
Event
Summary
Hershey Foods
Corporation announced a sharp decline in revenue and earnings for its third
fiscal quarter ended September 30, 1999. Consolidated net sales were $1,066,695,000
compared with $1,217,237,000 for the third quarter of 1998. Net income for the
third quarter was $87,578,000, or $.62 per share-diluted, compared with $107,533,000,
or $.74 per share-diluted, for the third quarter of 1998. Hershey Chairman and
CEO Kenneth L. Wolfe blamed the lackluster results on problems encountered since
July, when the company switched over to new systems for customer service, warehousing
and order fulfillment.
Market
Impact
The top U.S.
candy maker in computer trouble, dire implications for thousands of trick-or-treaters,
and the specter of Y2K combined into a drama that few journalists could resist.
Sifting through the hype, however, one finds little real insights into Hershey's
troubles. More importantly, the heavy media attention given this story obscures
the fact that implementation problems are often a major cause of short revenues
and missed earnings. Most of these problems never make it to the front page
because either a more convenient and less embarrassing scapegoat exists (Y2K)
or the company cannot reliably trace the problem back to the software or implementation.
In Hershey's case, the problems relate not to the software itself, but to the
way in which it was implemented.
Hershey's operational
challenges come at the worst possible time of the year. October, November and
December provide candy companies with about 40% of their annual sales revenues.
The Halloween holiday alone accounts for nearly $2 billion in sales. Hershey's
loss creates a potential boon for its competitors who can empty their inventories
and lure retailers from Hershey's frustrated customer base. Hershey faces additional
depletion of finances in the months to come as it spends more money to correct
the effects of its faulty implementation.
User
Recommendations
In July, Hershey
migrated to new customer service, warehousing, and order fulfillment systems
comprised of software applications from SAP, Manugistics, and Siebel. The company
chose to follow a "Big Bang" approach, that is, rather than moving to the new
system one component at a time, it did it in one fell stroke. Many companies
start out thinking in terms of a Big Bang, but later decide to follow a "phased"
approach, in which new parts of the system are introduced incrementally. This
more cautious strategy allows system bugs to be found and corrected before moving
on to the next phase, while reducing the shock within the user community that
inevitably accompanies new corporate-wide system implementations. Big Bangs
are misleading in their promise of "once and it's done" benefits as investments
made to remedy problems can quickly outweigh anticipated savings.
Whatever the
outcome, Hershey's problems should serve as a warning to all users who are involved
in implementations. Service provider selections and project planning should
involve the same amount of due diligence as business IT strategy definition
and software evaluation. Users involved in selections or early project planning
should seek expertise from professionals who understand the pitfalls of implementations
and can offer guidance. Otherwise, they risk repeating Hershey's Halloween nightmare.