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

About Danone (1970-1996)

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

Actimel Vitalinea Activia

Danonino

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 market Decentralization and Integration The Human Connection- Encourage to share

Local Markets

 Danone s strategy: Close to customer Get 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 !