From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

mcCain’s nerve centre
When one of McCain’s Australian customers submits an order to
McCain’s Australian headquarters in Ballarat, the order and invoice are
processed on the other side of the world, at the global technology
centre in Florenceville, New Brunswick. The same is true for business
generated by McCain’s companies in the United States, Europe, South
Africa, Asia, and South America.
The modern, light-filled building is the nerve centre of McCain’s
worldwide operations. Adjacent to the company’s original offices and
factory, it houses 270 information technology staff representing many
nationalities – their presence makes Florenceville perhaps the most
multicultural rural community in Canada.
McCain entered the information age in 1966 with a mechanical
punch-card system. In 1969, it acquired its first computer which was used
to process financial applications. During the early 1970s, the computer
was upgraded several times to support new applications. A mainframe
computer was installed in Florenceville in 1988.
Until the mid-1990s, the various McCain operations around the
world ran their own information systems. In 1995, Anil Rastogi joined
the company as chief information officer with the mandate of unifying
IT functions in one location. Not long after his arrival, he told
Harrison McCain that IT needed a new building. “Nobody thought he
would approve it, but he did,” Rastogi says. Harrison was not an expert
in information technology but he understood its importance.
The data centre has squash courts, saunas, a state-of-the-art
exercise room, a chess-playing area, and meeting rooms named after
potato varieties. Its computers are used to develop and maintain business
applications standardized for all regions. As of 2007, Florenceville
processed about 97 percent of McCain’s transactions and more than
seventy thousand emails daily across a global network connecting
more than eight thousand personal computers.
To attract qualified technology experts to Florenceville, McCain
provides housing at low cost. The newcomers must sign a contract
to stay for at least three years. Most stay longer, enjoying the friendly
village environment and nearby outdoors activities such as canoeing
and fishing.
For Rastogi, people are more important than technology. And his
people must understand that their job is not to run computers but to
facilitate the management of a multinational food-processing company.
“The greatest compliment I can give to a member of my staff is,
‘You understand the business,’ not, ‘You understand the hardware and
software,’” he says.
144 f rom the Ground up
the home front 145
TOP: Marion Boyer
learns how to use
the punch-card
system.
LEFT and BELOW:
Data processing’s
early days,
Florenceville.
FACING PAGE:
The lounge at
Florenceville’s
data centre, 2006.