Jeff Hutchinson, Global CIO, Maple Leaf Foods

Where some see a challenge, we see opportunity. At least, that's what we tell ourselves each day since undertaking a massive ERP consolidation effort at Maple Leaf Foods--whittling down 30 legacy systems into a single instance of SAP. Given our size and complexity, we have been very successful, with two business units fully deployed and plans to finish the rest by 2013, but there are of course issues to address beyond rollout and implementation.

As part of this effort, we merged a number of independent applications teams into a central information systems (IS) organization to better manage our resources and engage with the business at the enterprise level. In my experience, successful ERP rollout and adoption has as much or more to do with managing business change as it does with configuring system functionality, and despite our initial success, challenges remain on that side. For instance, how do I ensure that we have the technical skills available to support the new system long-term? Moreover, how do I ensure that my team is more business-savvy so we continue to serve as trusted advisers to our business partners on the bigger question of enabling business transformation? How do we maintain our seat at that table?

Advice: Perception of Credibility is Reality

Mark Brown, CIO, General Growth Properties