Award-Winning Case Study: SONOCO

Entry: Nomination for Best Project Achievement in Supply Chain Management

Strategic objectives and scope of business excellence project Sonoco, founded in 1899, is today a $4B packaging company headquartered in Hartsville, SC, with a strong history of year over year EBIT improvement and dividend payouts to shareholders. One of the company’s core strategic drivers is to grow the top line via organic growth and key acquisitions. In 2005, the company’s CEO noted that working capital costs had increased by $100MM over the preceding two years. This put the growth by acquisition goal at potential risk. In years’ past, performance was improved at year end via increased management focus; however, that improvement very quickly regresses after the fiscal year to where they were before. In addition, external benchmarking revealed that Sonoco was performing in the third quartile as compared to our peer group in the packaging industry.