CASE STORIES

A consumer technology company was facing a major transformation because of the COVID-19 pandemic and some rapid changes in marketplace. The first step was to facilitate the discovering and formulating of a new vision for the company. The task force consisted of the CEO, leadership team members and a few other members of the management. 

I was asked to manage the project, facilitate the task force meetings and guide them through the vision creation. During the iterative process, I kept on presenting several options to go ahead. Finally, after several discussions we reached the goal: a vision was formulated, presented to and discussed with the employees. 

On top of facilitation, the added value I brought to the process was presenting the taskforce alternative business futures for consideration. Some of my ideas were too far-reaching, some more feasible and realistic, but together they served the purpose of widening the managements’ mindset to think of their future business with a more open-minded approach.

My client, a medium-sized listed company operating globally, had for years been regarded as the pioneer in responsible and ethical sourcing and operations – a crucial factor for their ongoing competitiveness. However, they wanted to improve the management framework for the corporate responsibility so that everybody knew their responsibilities, and no significant area of sustainability would end up being disregarded. 

I was tasked to put together a business-driven sustainability program covering the company’s entire value chain from producers to the auction process and finally to the end users. The process included interviewing several dozens of stakeholder representatives, a materiality analysis backed up by global consumer surveys, studying responsibility requirements of client companies serving consumers and looking into the strategic choices the company has made. Finally, I presented my full program with market insights, recommended responsibility themes they should focus on (materiality), process recommendations for managing their sustainability initiatives and top-level roll-out plan to execute the program. I also proposed some ideas for business initiatives to benefit from the responsibility trend.   

The program and my ideas were well received. But there was also a non-intended and surprising cultural added value for my client. Via all the internal cross-functional discussions I had during the process, their internal silo walls began to crumble as sustainability was found as a common interest. 

My client, a globally operating consumer technology company, was in a process of being acquired by another technology group. The discussions were of friendly nature, and both the Board and top management of my client regarded the potential acquisition positively. 

For the publication of the deal, I prepared a comprehensive communications strategy and detailed communications plans covering all stakeholders of the target company. The planning work involved the international comms teams of both the seller and the buyer. The work was naturally carried out in extreme confidence, and only a handful of people in the company knew about it. 

The most important objective was to keep key talent in the company or at least give them trustworthy and relevant information timely for their own decision. For business continuity, also key partners were to be well informed right after the launch. 

Working together with the top management, we prepared the comms plans including key messaging, communications channels, and delivering the news to each relevant stakeholder groups.  The plan included ready-made comments and statements in case of a possible leak.

Eventually, the deal was signed and announced, and everything went according to communications plans.

Apart from successful communications, the added value my client got from the project was an understanding how they should improve their internal transformation communications. This more active and transparent approach to employee communications would eventually soften the impact of the acquisition news making it more understandable.