General Mills Uses Carlson Tool to Mature Analytics and AI

In the race to mature advanced analytics and adopt AI, many organizations lack perspective on how effectively they are using these tools. An assessment developed by Minnesota Carlson faculty is already guiding Twin Cities companies, including General Mills, toward a more optimized approach.

“A lot of the companies are trying to figure out how to define their AI strategy, and we think that this model will help them to understand where they currently are and what they need to do to get to that next level of expertise,” says Information & Decision Sciences Associate Professor Soumya Sen.

It’s called the Carlson Analytics Maturity Model (CAMM), an assessment tool Sen developed with Senior Lecturer Ryan Sougstad within Carlson’s Management Information Systems Research Center (MISRC). The model benchmarks an organization’s analytics and AI adoption against industry best practices. The idea grew from Sen’s work over the past decade as a faculty mentor in the Carlson Analytics Lab, where he frequently saw clients struggle to implement certain analytics recommendations. This real-world gap highlighted the need for a tool to help organizations first examine their own analytics maturity.

CAMM evaluates an organization across five dimensions: infrastructure, strategy, process, expertise, and impact. Employees complete a self-assessment, which is reviewed by members of the MISRC team, who then conduct follow-up interviews as needed. Using CAMM to evaluate the responses, MISRC completes a final report. 

“We provide recommendations on strategy, vision, areas where they can improve their skill set, and organizational culture around adoption,” says Sen. “This holistic review can help create a roadmap forward based on industry best practices.”

Unlike offerings from consulting agencies, CAMM provides an independent, academic perspective—an unbiased evaluation that Adam Vander Poel, ’18 MBA, had been looking for. At General Mills, his Advanced Analytics Team provides data-driven insights through end-to-end supply chain expertise, optimizing costs, and delivering savings to reinvest in the business. Think everything from sourcing the ingredients upstream in the supply chain, to making and delivering Cheerios to grocery store shelves for consumers to enjoy. 

“What we found from this model is that there are pockets where we are leading in the industry and other areas where we have growth opportunities,” says Vander Poel, senior director of supply chain strategy at General Mills. “We’ve put in place more practices around strengthening our training, governance, and overall life cycle for building capabilities coming out of this engagement. It’s really helped firmly position us on our continued maturity journey.”

Dave Jackett, senior director of digital transformation at General Mills, also credited the assessment for providing clarity, making it easier to communicate areas of focus with leadership.

“Everybody should be open to getting an external perspective or having self-reflection on where you are,” says Jackett. “If you feel like you don’t have a language to talk about where you are versus peers, maturity tests like this help you have a language.”

Moving forward, MISRC aims to secure funding to automate processes within CAMM to expand its rollout and eventually develop a database where participating organizations can directly compare maturity rankings with others. As MISRC eyes this expansion, updates are underway within CAMM to better evaluate the adoption of newer technologies, such as generative AI.

“Technology is changing very fast, and we’re monitoring that closely to adapt our evaluation criteria alongside it,” says Sen. “This way, our model captures a truly current holistic view of an organization’s maturity within the evolving analytics and AI landscape.”