Global knowledge management at Danone

Introduction

• Danone was founded in 1919 by the Greek doctor Isaac Carasso in Spain

• Group Danone is a world market leader in fresh diary product and also owned many bottled water brands

• The company has been successful in knowledge management through all level of business

• The company created ways of transferring and sharing knowledge throughout the company and between employees from around the world as the company has implemented a concept called the “Networking Attitude”

About Danone

• Isaac Carasso founded Canone

• The first person to perfect an industrial process for marketing yogurt

1919

• Danone merged with Gervais

• →Gerais Danone

1967 • Merged with BSN• →BSN Gervais

Danone (the biggest food company in France)

1973

About Danone (1970-1996)

• Refocused on food by selling off industrial glass section

• Acquisitions of Italian and Spanish food companies1970s~1980

s

• Entered the biscuits industry by acquiring General Biscuit

• Later, the company started to export to Eastern Europe

1986 • The company changed its name to Groupe Danone

• Franck Riboud took over from his father as chairman and CEO

1994~1996

Franck Riboud’s Contribution

He directed to company’s focus towards health and nutrition

He turned a Western European company into an international organization

He changed how the organization was managed

Danone’s Position

Global leader in fresh dairy products and was tied with Nestle in beverages

Danone was second only to Kraft Foods in biscuits and cereal products

Danone had revenues of €14 billion (14.98billion, 2009), compared with Nestle with revenues of €60 billion, and Kraft Foods with revenues of €25 billion

Danone’s Business Line

Activia

In 2008, Danone reorganized into 4 business lines: Fresh Dairy Products, Water and Beverages, Baby Food, and Clinical Nutrition

Managing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage

Challenge: Making product, customer, and operational information available

Objectives:Local markets- Different marketDecentralization and IntegrationThe Human Connection- Encourage to share

Local Markets

Danone’s strategy:Close to customerGet new product earlier Nestle V.S Danone- 12 Months Vs 3 Months

The Human Connection

• Instead of using traditional knowledge management that uses technology, uploading files, building databases, which was not the best way, Danone decided to look at behavioral patterns and more at interactions between people

Pre- Approaches to KM

• Diamond Strategy- To measure brand Effectiveness on the basis of various parameters

• A-consumers Vs E-consumers• Acceleration Unit- Identify good practices across the

Supply Chain Units • THEMIS- SAP system

The Networking Attitude

• In 2002 The Networking Attitude was launched as a new way of communication to enable and encourage staffs in different work sites to share knowledge and good practices in the enterprise.

MAKE IT YOURS & FOLLOW-UP

• Marketplace- Exchange knowledge• Message-in-a-bottle- Problem solving • T-shirts Strategy - Handling grievances

Assessing Networking Activities

• Mougin and Benenati believed the initial objectives of Network Attitude had been reached people across the organization had strengthened personal networks and shared practices with colleagues

• At Danone good practice promoted through networking. But this can not be do through technology because if you think that an IT system will create a network you will not be going anywhere.

• At danone , games foster between people during which they can exchange ideas

Contd..

• Success and fail of Market places– Anglo-Saxons: Networking normal– Latin : networking is not at all normal– Asian : networking is less normal

• Impact of networking on business is limited• Networking is a tool to improve your efficiency in

solving your key issues or priorities• If it is not focused on your key issues, it will not be

very useful

Extending the Networking Attitude

• Deeper, More employee– Mougin believed that all 90000 Danone employee could benefit from

the Networking Attitude to share good practice – While going deeper, considered that much of richness of networking

attitude comes from cross counties

• Wider-Outside the company– Moiugin and benenati contemplated using their tools to build external

bridges to partners, supplier, customers and consumers– Sharing process with retailers such as wal-mart and carrefour was also

an option for danone, who like any FMCG company lacked direct contact with consumer

Contd..

• Richer-For innovation– Mougin and Benenati considered going one step ahead-to

create new knowledge-inviting employees from various division to network with aim of coming up with new process of product

– Danone had conducted 7 so called co-building sessions“If we keep sharing practice we are not going to survive

because the good practice of today are not good practice of tomorrow. The challenges is to convince some of our senior management that it makes sense and that it create values”

-Deheunyunk

The Future

• Networking involved so many stakeholders that satisfying everyone would be difficult

• Should extend the concept to be deeper, wider and richer

• Mougin cleared that some division were more advanced than others when it come to networking and innovation

• He wished he had more systematic quantitative measures of the networking attitude and it’s impact on Danone.

THANK YOU !