Conagra Brands is the 2017 FMCG, Food & Beverage Category Winner

Category: FMCG, Food & Beverage

Winner: Conagra Brands

Summing up: An SCF programme that has been praised by suppliers and allowed Conagra Brands to achieve 78% of its three-year working capital goals within less than 12 months.

What the judges said: “A convincing success story! The thoroughly-committed cross-functional team was a success factor.”

Key facts:

• In less than a year, Conagra Brands’ partnership with PrimeRevenue has already achieved 78% of the company’s three-year working capital goals. Phase 2 is now targeted to exceed the original goals.
• The programme is allowing strategic suppliers to access finance at competitive rates because of the PrimeRevenue multi-funder platform on which banks compete to provide finance.
• Suppliers have praised the onboarding process which was led by procurement and fully supported by PrimeRevenue.

The entry:

In less than 12 months from go-live, Conagra Brands’ partnership with PrimeRevenue has already delivered most of the three-year working capital goals.

Conagra Brands set out to achieve $300m of working capital benefits which would help enable the company to realise a number of other strategic goals, such as paying down debt, funding innovation, reducing operating costs, and returning cash to shareholders via dividends and by-backs.

It was important to Conagra Brands, however, to ensure that its long-term suppliers were able to benefit from being able to access supply chain finance. The company evaluated potential vendors and concluded that PrimeRevenue’s offering was best placed to allow suppliers to get secure access to cash at a lower rate because of the multi-funder solution and the rates competition between banks on the PrimeRevenue platform.

In less than a year, Phase 1 of the project has achieved 78% of the working capital goal. Now, Phase 2 is being implemented with a target of exceeding the original $300m goal.

But Conagra Brands has enjoyed other benefits, too: accounts payable processes have been standardised across the company, with two standard terms offered today. A payment terms optimisation strategy has allowed for more informed decisions, generating more EBITDA impact and discounts than other solutions on the market.

Critical to the success of the programme has been a revolutionary supplier onboarding solution which used various means to communicate the SCF programme benefits to suppliers, facilitated by PrimeRevenue. Conagra Brands’ own procurement people were also trained on best practice with regard to the positioning of the programme. Suppliers have, in fact, praised the onboarding process and the company’s support through every stage.

While Conagra Brands involved staff from finance, treasury, accounts payable, IT and purchasing, a particularly important part was played by the procurement department where Alex Fox, SCF programme director, was the most visible sponsor and champion, driving the adoption of the programme in commercial negotiations with every supplier.

Prime Revenue provided the skills and supporting tools to help onboard strategic suppliers while Conagra Brands’ teams took complete ownership of the project with full support from senior management who empowered the teams to make key decisions. Communication throughout was exemplary.