Customer Solution Case Study
General Mills Uses Cloud Solution to Create
New Consumer Business Channel
Overview
“With Windows Azure, and by working with BrandJourney
Country or Region: United States
Venturing, we brought a new business idea to market
Industry: Manufacturing—Food and
beverage
Customer Profile
One of the world's leading food
companies, General Mills is ranked No. 166
on the Fortune 500 list for 2011. The
Minneapolis, Minnesota–based company
employs approximately 33,000 people
worldwide.
Business Situation
General Mills wanted to find a technological solution for offering gluten-free
products and information directly to
consumers, without incurring the cost and
complexity of a typical IT system.
Solution
The company worked with IT solution
provider Brand Journey Venturing to create
Gluten Freely, a cloud-based channel
based on the Windows Azure platform.
Benefits
 Vibrant business channel
 Cost-effective business platform
 Comprehensive development
environment
about twice as fast and at half the cost of using a more
traditional IT development and brand agency model.”
Dom Alcocer, Marketing Manager of New Ventures, General Mills
Gluten, a grain-based protein common in a modern diet, can
cause health problems for a small but growing number of
people who have sensitivities to it, including those with celiac
disease. To help consumers who had trouble finding and buying
gluten-free products, as well as to provide helpful information,
one of the world’s leading food companies, General Mills
created a direct-to-consumer retail channel that is hosted on the
Windows Azure platform and was designed using Microsoft
development and ecommerce products. By working with
solution provider BrandJourney Venturing, the new General Mills
business channel—called Gluten Freely—has resulted in rapid
consumer adoption and enthusiasm.
“We evaluated possible
technology platforms
and recommended
that General Mills use
a cloud-based solution
for the capabilities, and
for speed, flexibility,
and cost reasons.”
David Wolfe, Principal,
Brand Journey Venturing
Situation
As one of the world’s leading food manufacturers, General Mills keeps a close watch
on consumer trends, health advancements,
and other opportunities to grow its product
lines, which include famous brands such as
Betty Crocker, Cheerios, Nature Valley, and
Pillsbury. Accordingly, increased public
awareness about the use of gluten in foods
has been closely monitored by the
company.
Gluten is a protein naturally found in grains
such as wheat, barley, and rye that helps
dough to rise and gives certain foods a
chewy texture. It is typically found in
breads, cakes, pasta, pizza, and other
popular foods, many of which General Mills
produces.
Unfortunately, gluten can cause adverse
reactions in some people, most notably,
those who suffer from an autoimmune
disorder called celiac disease, symptoms of
which can include fatigue and digestive
problems. Medical experts estimate that 1
in 133 people has celiac disease, and that
more than 97 percent of those with the
disease are currently undiagnosed. Many
more people are believed to have some
level of gluten sensitivity even without the
disease.
For consumers, finding gluten-free
products and information about glutenfree diets has been frustrating and timeconsuming. Recognizing this growing need,
General Mills started making and promoting a wide range of gluten-free food
products, such as Betty Crocker gluten-free
desserts and reformulated Chex cereal
products.
However, the company needed a more
focused way to get the products and
related information to the public. “We
realized that people with celiac disease, and
others who have some kind of gluten
sensitivity or who just want to live a glutenfree lifestyle, were having particular
difficulty in simply locating all of the great
foods that they need to make this diet
come to life for them,” says Dom Alcocer,
Marketing Manager of New Ventures for
General Mills. “They couldn’t find places to
buy the products, and they had to spend a
lot of time sifting and sorting through the
Internet to find recipes and other
information about gluten-free diets.”
Alcocer and his colleagues had specific
ideas about how to best tackle the
problem. They wanted to create a direct-toconsumer online channel that would allow
customers to buy gluten-free products
directly from General Mills. And, in building
the channel, they wanted to avoid the high
costs and headaches of using traditional
on-premises hardware and software that
would require ongoing IT expense and
maintenance.
General Mills began talking with
BrandJourney Venturing, a solution
provider with experience in building directto-consumer businesses. David Wolfe,
Managing Director of BrandJourney
Venturing, says the challenge of the project
was both daunting and exciting.
“We were under pressure to deliver a
scalable new business in record time,” says
Wolfe. “We evaluated possible technology
platforms and recommended that General
Mills use a cloud-based solution for speed,
flexibility, cost, and scalability reasons.”
Solution
General Mills and BrandJourney Venturing
proceeded to create Gluten Freely, a new
cloud-based consumer business channel
“Having a solution in
the cloud is the most
efficient way for us to
build up capability, one
consumer at a time,
while saving dollars and
time every step along
the way.”
for gluten-free products and related
information. The site gives consumers
access to a broad range of resources—
including recipes, blogs, community
forums, and medical facts about gluten—
along with coupons, a product locator, and
an online store where they can choose from
a selection of more than 400 gluten-free
products, which are then shipped directly
to the consumer’s door. The company sells
its own products along with non–General
Mills products in an effort to provide the
largest possible selection to consumers.
Dom Alcocer, Marketing Manager of
New Ventures, General Mills
General Mills and BrandJourney Venturing
decided to host Gluten Freely in the cloud
by using Windows Azure, the development,
hosting, and service management
environment for the Windows Azure
platform. “We felt the best route to go was
to use a cloud-based solution running on
Windows Azure,” says Alcocer. “Having a
solution in the cloud is the most efficient
way for us to build up capability, one
consumer at a time, while saving dollars
and time every step along the way.” Gluten
Freely took about six months to develop
and went live in March 2011.
In addition to Windows Azure, the solution
uses other Microsoft products. One of
these is Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, a
cloud-based version of the Microsoft
enterprise sales and marketing software,
which General Mills is using for its
ecommerce analytics activities.
Gluten Freely was designed using familiar
Microsoft Visual Studio development tools
and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Product
and customer data is stored in Microsoft
SQL Azure, a self-managed, multitenant
relational cloud database service built on
Microsoft SQL Server technologies. The
solution also supports federated identity
with social networking activity, prompting
users to create a link when users log on to
sites like Facebook or Twitter.
In a related project, BrandJourney
Venturing worked with General Mills and
Microsoft to develop a custom, touchenabled application that will run on
Windows 7–based tablet PCs, Designed for
a separate business venture, this
application will take advantage of the same
underlying cloud services and infrastructure
as Gluten Freely. The tablet PCs will be used
by independent consultants who will
provide in-home cooking lessons using
General Mills products and Gluten Freely
recipes.
Benefits
Gluten Freely has already been a great
success for General Mills. The new business
channel is generating a lot of consumer
enthusiasm, as evidenced by substantial
site traffic, sales, and positive social media
feedback.
By building the cloud-based solution on
Windows Azure, the General Mills and
BrandJourney Venturing developers were
able to quickly build a direct-to-consumer
channel that meets a growing consumer
market. The Windows Azure platform
continues to provide a cost-effective, agile
environment for both development work
and ongoing site maintenance.
Vibrant Business Channel, Consumer
Enthusiasm
The initial response to the Gluten Freely site
was overwhelming, immediately generating
the kind of consumer “buzz” that is highly
valued by consumer products companies.
“We’ve gotten lots of great feedback on
our Facebook page and on our Twitter
stream. In our first day, we had orders from
more than 25 states; and of course, we now
“What Windows Azure
gave us right out of
the gate was a
platform for creating a
solution where
compliance and data
integrity were not
issues."
David Wolfe, Managing Director,
BrandJourney Venturing
deliver to every state in the continental
United States,” says Alcocer. “With
Windows Azure and the other Microsoft
products, we were able to create and
deploy a solution that met a growing
market need. It gets great branding and
advertising out there in a new way, and
people love being able to go to one place
to shop for gluten-free products and have
them shipped right to their doors.”
Wolfe adds that by building the solution on
Windows Azure, General Mills and its
customers can be assured that financial and
other information related to transactions
are handled with confidentiality. “What
Windows Azure gave us right out of the
gate was a platform for creating a solution
where compliance and data integrity were
protected,” says Wolfe. “We have great
confidence in the Microsoft data centers
that run Windows Azure. This is critical to
the success of the project, because we’re
working with a lot of transactional
information, including credit card data and
customers’ personal information. The
Windows Azure platform provides a level of
security and robustness that supports a
rock-solid experience for consumers.”
Compelling, Cost-Effective Business
Platform
Alcocer says the Windows Azure pay-asyou-go hosting model is a boon for the
company because it’s more flexible than a
traditional on-premises IT infrastructure.
“Windows Azure allows us to add infrastructure based on consumer demand—
essentially, one consumer at a time—
instead of forcing us to buy and build
servers and systems based on guesses of
what we’ll need,” he says. “The General
Mills New Ventures group has been tasked
with creating new ways of doing business.
With Windows Azure, and by working with
BrandJourney Venturing, we brought a new
business idea to market about twice as fast
and at about half the cost of using a more
traditional IT development and brand
agency model.”
The Gluten Freely site complements activity
done by the company’s retail chain partners
because it delivers educational materials
that can be used by retailers. The service
also helps reach customers who are in
remote or rural locations and have limited
access to well-stocked retail outlets.
Equally important is the competitive
advantage that it provides for General Mills.
As the site draws more consumers to the
channel, the increased customer base
draws more activity from partners and from
competitors selling their products through
Gluten Freely. This growing channel activity
leads not only to more revenues, but also
to more opportunities for deeper analytics
by General Mills that can be used to drive
the business forward.
Comprehensive Development
Environment Spurs Innovation
The decision to build Gluten Freely on
Windows Azure meant that Wolfe’s team
and the General Mills developers had
access to a comprehensive development
environment.
“With Windows Azure, we could use a
comprehensive Windows development
environment, which helped us create a
flexible, highly scalable, and comprehensive
e-commerce platform in the cloud,” Wolfe
says. “Our work wasn’t always easy,
because we were breaking new ground
with the integration of e-commerce,
accounting, and customer data in the
cloud. But we had all the tools we needed,
"We had all the tools
we needed, plus
rapid assistance from
Microsoft, to solve
our development
questions.”
David Wolfe, Managing Director,
BrandJourney Venturing
plus rapid assistance from Microsoft, to
solve our development questions.”
Developing on the Windows Azure
platform also laid the foundation for future
business initiatives. The Gluten Freely site
took about six months to develop; the
Windows 7 tablet solution, which was created using the same tools and technology,
took about three months. “That time will
probably shrink even more for future
efforts,” says Alcocer. “This is a huge competitive advantage for General Mills in
terms of speed to market and the integrated analytics that can help drive new
business models.”
Wolfe notes that, by taking a chance with
emerging cloud technology, General Mills
is demonstrating business and technology
leadership, and how a large company can
use innovative technology solutions to
directly engage with consumers and bring
in entirely new communities of customers.
“We feel that General Mills is really a leader
right now in building brand new business
models in the cloud,” Wolfe says. “The
Windows Azure solution not only allows
General Mills to bring products to consumers in North America, but also lets it
expand into emerging markets. Everyone
seems incredibly happy with what we’ve
been able to achieve.”
Windows Azure Platform
The Windows Azure platform provides an
excellent foundation for expanding online
product and service offerings. The main
components include:

Windows Azure. Windows Azure is
the development, service hosting, and
service management environment for
the Windows Azure platform. Windows


Azure provides developers with ondemand compute and storage to host,
scale, and manage web applications
on the Internet through Microsoft data
centers.
Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL
Azure offers the first cloud-based
relational and self-managed database
service built on Microsoft SQL Server
2008 technologies.
Windows Azure AppFabric. With
Windows Azure AppFabric, developers
can build and manage applications
more easily both on-premises and in
the cloud.
− AppFabric Service Bus connects
services and applications across
network boundaries to help
developers build distributed
applications.
− AppFabric Access Control provides
federated, claims-based access control
for REST web services.

Windows Azure Marketplace
DataMarket. Developers and
information workers can use the
new service DataMarket to easily
discover, purchase, and manage
premium data subscriptions in the
Windows Azure platform.
To learn more, visit:
www.microsoft.com/windowsazure
Related Resources and Information
To learn more about the Windows Azure
platform, visit the website at:
www.windowsazure.com
Learn: Channel9 Windows Azure Training
Course
Read: Security Best Practices for Developing
on the Windows Azure Platform
Download: Windows Azure Training Kit
Download: Windows Azure SDK
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the
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at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the
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services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the
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contact your local Microsoft subsidiary.
To access information using the World
Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about
BrandJourney Venturing products and
services, call (757) 515-5555 or visit the
Web site at:
www.brandjourneyventuring.com
Microsoft Cloud Power
Microsoft offers a complete set of cloudbased solutions to meet business needs,
including solutions for advertising; communications (email, meetings); collaboration
(document storage, sharing, workflow);
business applications (customer resource
management, business productivity); data
storage and management; and infrastructure services. In addition, customers can
take advantage of an entire ecosystem of
solution providers and Microsoft partners.
For more information about Microsoft
Cloud Power, go to:
www.microsoft.com/cloud
For more information about General
Mills products and services, call (800)
248-7310 or visit the Web site at:
www.generalmills.com
To view the full story plus video of
General Mills and other success stories,
visit the Microsoft Success Web site at:
www.microsoft.com/business/success/
Software and Services
Windows Azure Platform
− Windows Azure
− Microsoft SQL Azure
 Microsoft Dynamics
− Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
 Windows 7

This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Microsoft Visual Studio
− Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Professional Edition
 Technologies
− Microsoft .NET Framework 4
