To manifest digital transformation in an organization, leaders and technical experts must be specific and strategic about investments in how they acquire data and interpret it to inform their business decision making. This is particularly true in the case of data generated by models and simulations, which can often be costly to build, validate, distribute, and re-use. The problem space in CPG follows and anticipates the changing needs of consumers, and thus is in constant flux. As part of our digital transformation, General Mills has experimented with modeling and simulation approaches in several different engineering disciplines and as applied to many of our different brands and businesses. Above all, a key learning is that models and simulation activities deserving investment must be highly practical. They must meet designers, engineers, application scientists, and leaders in their current practice and ways of working. Making models and simulations highly practical ensures a shared understanding, common experience, and trust in the digital solution which is essential for long-term adoption of models as sources of data truth and simulations as key ways-of-working to solve problems. In this presentation, some generalized examples of practical, successful engagement of application specialists and leaders to build modeling and simulation capabilities in a large CPG company will be highlighted. Strategic focus on delivering models and simulation tools as either results, teaching & learning opportunities, or software products is a key part of meeting customers of modeling work where they currently practice their work. It also focuses on delivering the data they need from models and simulations in a way that is most accessible and useful for their current needs, which helps to deepen impact. Establishing a chain of successes that incrementally increase the confidence in data from simulation and evolves to solve increasingly more challenging technical problems ensures that modeling and simulation embed in the ways of working in a CPG company. All of this must be a strategic focus for companies serving rapidly moving market segments to ensure that digital transformation can be evolutionary and sustainable.