| Biggest had also to be best
when Cadbury Schweppes became the world's largest confectionery company with the
acquisition of Adams from Pfizer in 2003. City and investor confidence had to be
maintained as the deal had cost £2.7 billion and had to show returns in terms of cost
savings from consolidation, market share gains, increased profit and shareholder value. The
company took the opportunity to make wide ranging changes in
management and operational structure in a 4 year programme aimed at exploiting
synergies and driving growth.
Chris Bones, Group Organisational Effectiveness and Development Director led the
organisation and change aspects of this change programme.The company aimed at delivering
cost cutting, reinvestment and targeted growth in sales, profit and shareholder value. The
targets were tough: net growth in sales value of 3-5% per annum and gross savings of
c£400m in costs over a three year period. He points out "To make it happen we
all had to resist the urge to apply traditional thinking and find different and more
effective ways of managing the new enlarged company.
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We spent time developing a
very business focussed approach to thinking about planning and implementing the change.As
part of this thinking we needed to change the way people thought about major strategic
change and looked for a catalyst to find our own way effectively, not a prescriptive or
off the shelf solution. We had to take our people with us through a period of massive
change and rationalisation in which confidence would be tested. They had to be happy to
adopt a single approach to thinking about programme and project management methodology.
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Eddie Obeng of Pentacle was the catalyst of choice for Cadbury Schweppes. He had worked
with the company two years previously on a behavioural change programme which had been
fully and successfully implemented prior to the acquisitions of 2002-3. He knew the
company culture and had experience of customising his own project management delivery
techniques to it. He had worked with small groups of key managers in structured workshops
where he helped them identify where to consolidate, where to innovate, where to focus
resources for growth and how to implement the changes effectively.
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The tools and techniques which evolved from this process were immediately put into
practice and worked. Pentacle got a very positive reception and the project generated a
high level of interest, reflected in, for example, a huge amount email discussion.
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.The process of changing the thinking about strategic change is
still underway, but it has got off to a good start with key programme managers being
supported in developing their approaches and plans to improve the chances of meeting or
beating their targets. It is supporting the business change where ten business units have
been rationalised to a leaner, more effective 5 operating regions, supported by 6 staff
functions and new global leadership headed by team of eleven key executives reporting to
the new CEO. In 2003 the company announced better than expected results. Margins are
growing on target. The integration process is producing savings which are being fed back
into support of key brands. . For the new Cadbury Schweppes the change is working. |
