Sodexho Asia Pacific, a major subsidiary of one of the world’s largest food and support
services, Sodexho Alliance, provides a wide range of catering, food and management
services, and facilities management. Sodexho Asia Pacific employs 20,000 employees in
nine countries. It has used a decentralized business model, which gave its managers
considerable autonomy to adapt their operations to meet local customer needs. However,
the autonomy came with a price, and Sodexho Asia Pacific found that over time
information silos were created that made it difficult to communicate across national
boundaries. Its processes were adapted to accommodate the information systems and
back-office processes of the many different service providers in each country. Further
adaptation was required following a series of mergers and acquisitions in the early 2000’s.
When Sodexho absorbed these many organizations, it had to design additional systems and
middleware to integrate each legacy system with the others.
As a result of the decentralization, mergers, and acquisitions, Sodexho Asia Pacific’s
processes were extremely complex, its information systems were fragmented, and com-
munication across systems was difficult. Even though Sodexho Asia Pacific was very
large, it could not leverage the company’s overall purchasing power. Nor could its
managers respond quickly enough to take advantage of opportunities or make timely
decisions. In an industry challenged by its low profit margins, expenditures ballooned as a
result of processing inefficiencies and multiple procurement systems. The company knew
it needed to take dramatic action. It determined an organizationwide integrated system was
required to improve information sharing and leverage its purchasing power.
