What kind of role does the CIO play at Butterball?
Wells: More and more it is a very strategic role. I’ll give the Reader’s Digest version of what we’ve been through over the last couple of years: We had a huge SAP project that went live two years ago this October. It went very well for us. We’re running SAP for almost everything. One reason for that project was to help us grow. We took a look at the systems we had that were homegrown. They worked very well, but the company wanted more of a platform for growth. How prophetic. On the first anniversary of the SAP go-live, we became Butterball LLC. We acquired Butterball, but we’re smart enough to take that name. Our company had been on a mission to grow a name brand. That’s very costly. After many years, if you get 20% name recognition you’ve done good. So, kind of overnight, we doubled in size. How do you figure out what you’re going to be selling? Wells: There is a lot of forecasting involved. What made this year particularly interesting for us — and we have a lot to be thankful for t
