{"id":869,"date":"2015-12-03T21:40:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T02:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/sweetgreen-sweet-sustainable-operating-model-alignment\/"},"modified":"2015-12-03T22:07:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T03:07:53","slug":"sweetgreen-a-healthy-dose-of-operating-model-alignment","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/sweetgreen-a-healthy-dose-of-operating-model-alignment\/","title":{"rendered":"sweetgreen: a healthy dose of operating model alignment"},"content":{"rendered":"
Every year around this time, my Uncle Jim faces a daunting task: planning, acre by acre, what he\u2019ll grow next summer on his fruit and vegetable farm.\u00a0 If Jim doesn\u2019t grow enough of an in-demand crop, he\u2019ll miss out on big profits. \u00a0If he grows too much, he could waste thousands of dollars and employee hours harvesting vegetables that ultimately rot.\u00a0 The winter planning process is understandably stressful for small farmers like Jim.\u00a0 But a couple of years ago, Jim met a supplier who wanted to help reduce his planning stress: sweetgreen, the farm-to-table salad chain.\u00a0 sweetgreen goes out of its way to generate and share demand predictions with its small-farm suppliers months <\/em>before the growing season, and to work with farmers to accommodate fluctuations in their summer harvest.\u00a0 Watching Jim interact with sweetgreen was, to me, the first sign that the salad chain\u2019s business and operating models are well-aligned.<\/p>\n