Project Description

ConAgra

Industry

Food producer and food service operations

Client

ConAgra Foods

Focus

With Riskonnect GRC, the risk managers at ConAgra Foods have more time to manage and respond to risks, with increased efficiency.

Previous System

A legacy RMIS, combined with spreadsheets and documents that was used primarily for running triangle reports.

Challenge

With more than 33,000 employees, 100 manufacturing plants and many suppliers in their supply chain, ConAgra Foods risk managers struggled to keep track of the probable risks that could affect their properties’ processes, and ultimately the bottom line, and they didn’t have a clear picture of the risk relationships between the plants and their suppliers. They also did not have business continuity processes in place should a disaster strike one of their plants causing a work stoppage.

Riskonnect Solution
  1.  Riskonnect GRC
  2. Riskonnect Alerts
  3. eSignature
Results
  1.  More time – Riskonnect gave ConAgra Foods’ risk managers what they needed most and considered to be the most valuable: time. When ConAgra Foods’ risk managers look at business continuity at a plant, they document the plant’s critical processes and determine all the finished goods that are created there. Then they look at how these products are tied to the brand, what supplies and ingredients those products need, the margin and sales volumes of those products, the equipment used, and the process flow. “Now it takes us about a day and a half at each plant. Before Riskonnect, it would take two to three months to gather and input data. Now we spend more time talking with the plant management about each of the risks and how those risks are tied or how much they will impact the company,” said Scott Solberg, Director Finance, Insurance & Loss Control.
  2. Peace of mind – With Riskonnect’s Risk Alerts, ConAgra has peace of mind knowing that they will be alerted should an event happen near one of their facilities. These alerts trigger a set of processes that initiate workflows the risk managers have established as part of their business continuity plan. “Now we can communicate with plant managers, if there is an incident, to determine what they need in order to manage and recover,” Solberg said.
  3. Greater efficiency – ConAgra Foods risk managers no longer use Powerpoints to keep track of their Form 10-K risks, and gone are the days of struggling with version control on spreadsheets when trying to collect data on their manufacturing plants. They now use Riskonnect GRC to keep track of their top 20 risks. Now that the risk managers are more efficient, they also have more time to work with their risk oversight committee to look at all of their risks and the probability, impact and severity of those risks. “In the past, it would take us quite a bit of time to put together a presentation for our Audit and Finance Committee,” Solberg said.
  4. Better planning for the worse – With Riskonnect GRC, Solberg said they have the tools to help them develop business continuity processes to plan for the countless risks that may arise. In the past, they were unable to plan or see how some risks caused other risks. But Riskonnect GRC provides quick, easy, and reliable access to the required information, and generates compelling reports, dashboards, and graphics to efficiently convey often complex relationships between an organization’s risks. Risk managers need to understand their organization’s risk relationships in order to evaluate the impact of an event on key risks and to ensure the organization responds properly to an event. Risk Managers should ensure they have a system in place that allows them to easily identify risk relationships and to clearly communicate those relationships to upper management.
  5. Improved communication – Riskonnect’s eSignature function allows the risk management team to send business continuity documents to the plant managers and superiors for them to electronically review, sign and submit. Once the document is submitted, it is automatically entered into the Riskonnect system. Since these users are outside of Riskonnect, there are no  user fees, but the users are still able to review and sign the document and keep a copy of it. They can even make comments or changes if the data isn’t correct.