Dive Brief:
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Tyson Foods is looking to use some of the $300 million it reserved from the recent tax overhaul to restructure how the meat company spends on its technology infrastructure, according to CEO Tom Hayes, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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The transition begins with "moving from analog to digital" to maintain a competitive pace in the industry, said Hayes. In theory, this will help elevate Tyson's performance in the supply chain and introduce more transparency between products and customers.
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Tyson's CTO Scott Spradley joined the company in June of last year and has encouraged digital transformation within the cloud and technology "sprints" that allow employees to effectively test drive new applications and provide feedback.
Dive Insight:
Tyson Foods has an application stack that is custom to its business needs, but since Spradley joined the chicken company, a more standardized approach is being taken.
Technology stands as the key to enabling Tyson to improve its growth as the meat processing industry itself rides the waves of changing commodity prices, which can lead to unforgiving "excess returns," according to Hayes.
The food industry is already taking up new technologies that not only aid digital transformation, but elevate it. Starbucks is turning to blockchain to ensure the integrity of its coffee bean supply chain. And IBM is developing digestible trackers for food to better oversee where and how food is manipulated within the supply chain.
Some companies find comfort in custom applications, but making the leap to more streamlined offerings with more new technologies involved, including AI, could help guide a company out of a revenue rut.