One of the World S Leading Food Companies, General Mills Operates in More Than 100 Countries

Customer Solution Case Study

General Mills Frees More Time for Innovation with Research-Focused Search Application

Overview “By using FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, our Country or Region: United States researchers can refine their searches and find exactly what Industry: Manufacturing—Consumer packaged goods they are looking for. They spend more time innovating than

Customer Profile looking for information.” General Mills is one of the world’s Michelle Check, Research and Development Systems Leader, Global Knowledge Services, General leading food companies, marketing Mills more than 100 consumer brands globally. General Mills is based in To stay out front as one of the world’s leading food companies, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has General Mills strives to get new product ideas out of 30,000 employees. development and onto supermarket shelves as quickly as Business Situation possible. To help researchers take full advantage of information Company researchers desired a faster, more accurate search mechanism for and expertise throughout the company, General Mills created a combing thousands of internal research-focused search application by using Microsoft documents, and locating experts, in the course of creating new products. SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Researchers enjoy faster and more accurate Solution General Mills deployed Microsoft searches, which yields more time for innovation. Because SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft researchers can perform more comprehensive and accurate FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint to create a comprehensive, searches, they minimize time spent duplicating efforts and tunable search-driven application benefit from the work of others. General Mills was able to meet focused on the needs of researchers. 85 percent of its search needs with the out-of-the-box Benefits functionality available in the two Microsoft programs, and it is More time for innovation Ability to expand on research considering extending the solution companywide. Lower costs from easy customization

Situation where scientists record research data; the One of the world’s leading food company labeling system, which contains companies, General Mills operates in product packaging copy; and a global more than 100 countries and markets product database. Each of these more than 100 consumer brands, applications had its own built-in search including Cheerios, Häagen-Dazs, Nature capability, so researchers had to perform Valley, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and the same search multiple times, usually Green Giant. Headquartered in by using different syntax rules. Besides Minneapolis, Minnesota, General Mills consuming time, redundant search employs 30,000 people worldwide and efforts produced a wide range of results posted 2009 sales of U.S.$15.9 billion. and huge volumes of poorly qualified results. The global food industry is very competitive, and to remain a leader in Researchers also had difficulty searching the industry, it is critical to develop new for information that they did not know ideas quickly and to be the first to existed, for example, “What is the trend market with innovative offerings. Before with whole grain?” or “Is there high developing new products, scientists and consumer interest in Vitamin D and researchers in the General Mills calcium?” “We had so many items Innovation, Technology, and Quality indexed that researchers would get a (ITQ) group review the research that flood of results back, and they didn’t General Mills has already done for similar know where to begin exploring to find products. “We have accumulated vast what they needed,” Check says. “We amounts of knowledge across the needed better search refinement.” company over decades spent developing many great products, and we want to General Mills also wanted to better make sure that we’re not wasting connect its researchers with one another. valuable development time reinventing The ITQ group includes people located the wheel,” says Michelle Check, all over the world, and the company Research and Development Systems knew that researchers in developing Leader in the Global Knowledge Services international locations could benefit at General Mills. from the expertise of their peers. Conversely, scientists in Minneapolis However, the sheer volume of wanted to be able to learn about information that the researchers needed successful ideas developed for non-U.S. to reference made it difficult to navigate markets. However, none of the search results and reach meaningful company’s search tools returned conclusions. Researchers stored much of “people” results, which limited the their content on Microsoft Office researcher’s ability to find subject matter SharePoint Server 2007 team Web sites experts. but also consulted other applications within General Mills, such as an “We conservatively estimated that a Electronic Lab Notebook application, better search capability could save our

28 employees a minimum of a couple of Enterprise Collaboration Platform Team hours a month, which quickly adds up to at General Mills. “We had FAST Search up thousands of hours a year,” Check says. and running within a couple weeks, and “That’s a lot of extra time that our people it took a few more weeks to implement could focus on innovation rather than on the whole solution.” non-value-added work.” By using the out-of-the-box data Solution connectors in FAST Search Server 2010 Through 2009, the General Mills for SharePoint, General Mills was able to Enterprise Collaboration Platform Team quickly and easily connect all the diverse researched search technologies to help information sources that researchers had the ITQ group—and ultimately the rest been searching separately. “We linked in of the company—reduce the time spent our existing SharePoint sites, internal searching for information and people Web sites, labeling system, and even and improve search results. “We did a lot federated external sources, such as an of benchmarking against other external new-products database, and companies,” says Jenny Hon, Project Bing, which is included with FAST Search Manager in the Enterprise Collaboration Server 2010 for SharePoint out of the Platform Team at General Mills. “We box,” Werner says. were really impressed with what we saw of Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for Comprehensive, Tunable Search SharePoint.” With its new research and development (R&D) search application, ITQ Rapid Setup of Search-Driven researchers can easily search multiple Application content sources by using a single search The General Mills Enterprise box. Icons for each content type, called Collaboration Platform Team worked visual cues, tell the researcher what kind with Global Knowledge Services (Check’s of document an item is—a Microsoft group) to create a pilot of a search- Office PowerPoint presentation, a driven application for ITQ. A search- Microsoft Office Word document, an driven application is one that helps a Adobe Acrobat file, an e-mail message, well-defined set of people—in this case, and so forth—as well as which business scientists and researchers—accomplish application it comes from—such as the specific business tasks more efficiently by labeling system or the new-products using a search engine customized to database. The visual cues and source their content, roles, and needs. information help researchers find the information they are looking for faster. “Setting up FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint was not that difficult, because Researchers can index content from a it sits behind SharePoint Server 2010 and number of different sources and use thus uses an architecture that we already what Microsoft calls deep refiners to know,” says Jeremiah Werner, quickly and easily filter results. For Development Consultant in the example, General Mills created a custom

38 product refiner that enables researchers General Mills has also added a to narrow search results by particular document-type refiner, so researchers products. If a researcher performs a can search only for PowerPoint search for “high fiber cereals,” he or she presentations, for example. “Sometimes can further run specific product refiners you know that what you are looking for for Total, Cheerios, and Chex cereals. All is in a PowerPoint presentation or in an the content that contains those keywords e-mail message. With a document-type generates in a separate area of the refiner, we can search for a topic screen. By using refiners, General Mills appearing only in those content types,” can incorporate the language of its Check says. “With FAST Search, we can business in the search experience to yield also preview the entire PowerPoint more accurate, useful results. presentation, which saves a lot of time spent opening and closing documents.” Because FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint aggregates information from With a possible future expansion of multiple applications, General Mills also SharePoint Server 2010 and FAST Search added a visual refiner, which is a bar Server 2010 for SharePoint beyond the chart that shows researchers how many ITQ group, the Enterprise Collaboration of the search results come from each Platform Team will be able to tune the content source. For example, at a quick relevance of the search process to glance, a researcher can see that five of different areas of the business. Marketing the results came from the labeling people are looking for certain types of system and 150 results came from the information when they perform a search Electronic Lab Notebook application. on “Cheerios,” and R&D staffers look for “Seeing that results appeared from the something entirely different when they labeling system might encourage the search on the same word. By taking researcher to check out labels from advantage of the user profiles in FAST existing high fiber cereals,” Check says. Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, the “Because the information is just a click company can tune search results for away, researchers are more likely to look particular user contexts. “Users in human at it than if the information was buried in resources, manufacturing, marketing, and thousands of search results.” other areas will get results that make sense to them,” Hon says. “We’re excited General Mills has also used FAST Search that we can now do this so easily on the Server 2010 for SharePoint to implement SharePoint 2010 platform.” people search. When a researcher performs a search on the cereal Ease of Use “Cheerios,” a list of other ITQ researchers General Mills also took advantage of affiliated with that product come up in a several ease-of-use features in FAST separate area of the screen. This enables Search Server 2010 for SharePoint to researchers to quickly find subject matter speed information search. A feature experts and reach out to them. called entity extraction alleviates the need for researchers to tag all their

48 documents as they add them to read through. Researchers can also use SharePoint Server. Instead, FAST Search advanced-search options such as “exact Server 2010 for SharePoint tags the phrase,” “don’t include,” “who modified documents with the appropriate last,” date-range searches, and other properties and metadata at the time the delimiters that help narrow search documents are indexed. The General results. “I’ve been surprised to see how Mills team also used the out-of-the-box eagerly our pilot users jumped into these Web parts to customize the user advanced searches,” Check says. “All interface for FAST Search Server 2010 for these features are very user-friendly and SharePoint, adding photos and graphics easy to figure out.” to make search results more intuitive and engaging. General Mills has 150 researchers piloting the ITQ search application The content processing pipeline in FAST during April and May 2010. General Mills Search Server 2010 for SharePoint adds is considering rolling out FAST Search structure to unstructured information by Server 2010 for SharePoint enriching the information that flows enterprisewide to provide the same through it. By using the content tunable search capabilities and also to processing pipeline, the ITQ search consolidate the myriad search application can identify people, technologies currently used across the companies, locations, e-mail addresses, company. and date/time information in a document and extract custom metadata Benefits based on term lists. From its pilot use of SharePoint Server 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 for General Mills employees can use the SharePoint, the General Mills ITQ group spelling and synonyms features of FAST has seen faster and more accurate Search Server to find information without searches, which yields more time for coming up with every possible spelling innovation and less time wading through or variation. For example, General Mills search results. Because researchers can refers to Cheerios internally as YBC, so do more comprehensive and accurate both terms come up in a search for searches, they minimize time spent “Cheerios.” A search for “yogurt” will repeating work done by others. They are return international spellings, such as also more apt to perform deeper “yoghurt” and also “Yoplait,” a General research when they know that their Mills yogurt brand. “These are additional search efforts will be paid off with examples of how FAST Search enables us accurate, meaningful results. to search in the language of our business,” Check says. From a development and maintenance perspective, General Mills was able to Because the search engine collapses meet 85 percent of its search needs with duplicate results, it reduces the number the out-of-the-box functionality of FAST of search results that researchers have to Search Server 2010 for SharePoint and

58 SharePoint Server 2010 by using its documents and experts by using the existing Microsoft licenses. search application.

More Time for Innovation “The ability to find others who have By using FAST Search Server 2010 for worked on certain topics is greatly SharePoint, General Mills scientists and enhanced by the people-search results in researchers can find information faster, FAST Search Server 2010,” Check says. which helps them make faster, better- “Effective search is critical in taking full informed decisions during new-product advantage of what we have done in the development. “Researchers can go to past and building on that in the future. It one place instead of half a dozen to do helps us continue to make consistent their research, confidently knowing that forward progress with our R&D they’re combing through all the relevant strategies.” information,” Check says. “It’s critical that we not waste time reinventing the wheel This is especially important as General and take advantage of every bit of Mills continues to expand globally. “Our knowledge that we have already created. newer international locations want to This ultimately helps General Mills take advantage of the tremendous develop products faster and continue to amount of knowledge and experience be first to market with new food product contained at corporate headquarters,” ideas.” Hon says. “Much of the work that our international staff members are doing General Mills anticipates that its new has already been done. Instead of search application will yield significant starting from scratch, they can take time savings as the solution is adopted advantage of what others have done in by a growing set of employees. Says setting up new plants and distribution Check, “By using FAST Search Server centers, developing snack products or 2010 for SharePoint, our researchers can frozen foods, setting up human resource refine their searches and find exactly policies, and many other activities. what they are looking for. They spend Conversely, easy people connections will more time innovating than looking for help researchers at corporate information.” headquarters take advantage of some of the expertise and ideas coming out of Greater Opportunity to Expand on our international talent pool.” Existing Research Also, because there is quite a bit of The easier it is to find information, the internal project rotation in the ITQ less time General Mills employees spend group, the ability to reference work that redoing work that someone else has others have done is critical in making already done. When a researcher is sure that there is continuity as people creating a new soup, for example, and move between projects. trying to understand other General Mills soups that have contained oregano and When researchers had to perform search pasta, he or she can consult relevant inquiries in multiple applications and

68 wade through reams of poor results, it maintenance burden on the IT staff. With discouraged them from making the FAST Search Server 2010 and SharePoint effort in the first place. “We want Server, we can give each group the researchers to take full advantage of all specific results based on their user the knowledge that the company has context.” accumulated,” Check says. “With a better search capability, researchers have “If we roll out the solution companywide, greater confidence that their searches we’ll be able to quickly spin up new will be worth the time, which encourages search applications for different areas of deeper research. They spend the time the business and give different sets of documenting their own work more users the features they need to conduct diligently, because they see how it will searches that meet their specific benefit others, and they take the time to requirements,” Werner says. “We’ll also search the work of others.” be able to easily customize the user interface to meet different business Easy to Customize, Low Costs needs, as the Web parts are By building its ITQ search application customizable and reusable.” with SharePoint Server 2010, General Mills was able to build on its IT staff’s Hon concludes, “Our goal is to connect existing knowledge and take full people, documents, and communities, so advantage of extensive functionality that anyone can quickly find out what included SharePoint Server 2010 and they need to know about anything. Our FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. vision is for employees to enter a phrase “SharePoint Server got us 85 percent of or product name, such as “Cheerios,” and the way there, out of the box, meaning find all the past projects that involve that 85 percent of what we needed to Cheerios, research underway, product build a custom search site was included specifications, label information, in the packaged SharePoint Server and nutritional information, and everything FAST Search Server product,” Hon says. necessary to become an expert. We “Also, because General Mills has a believe that SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Enterprise Client Access FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint License Suite, we are realizing great are the foundation for this vision.” pricing advantages.”

General Mills is evaluating the possibility to extend SharePoint Server 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint companywide. “We have dozens of business groups in the company, and they all have different search needs,” Werner says. “Right now, all these groups use their own search portals, which represent a heavy investment and

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