A global enterprise software firm was in the middle of company-wide restructuring.  The massive change was imperative to enable the organization to be nimble and creative enough to respond to the increasing demands of their customer base.

Restructuring, budget and personnel changes had happened across all areas of the business, with more to come.  The Marketing business, under its maverick leader, had had some successes in recent years, but still lacked a true ‘seat at the table’.

This latest restructuring presented an opportunity to gain that ‘seat’.  However, to be successful would require going beyond the box-and-line changes that had happened regularly in the past, to drive lasting cultural change and process improvement.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS OPENED UP NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR SERVICE DELIVERY
Early work made it clear that we needed to figure out how to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of the people towards a shared goal.  This spirit was a critical factor in the organization’s huge success but had also led to a fractured workforce, ineffective performance management and poor communications flow throughout.

OUR CONTRIBUTION:

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KEY THINKING FROM THE MARKETING TRANSFORMATION WAS ADOPTED BY GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
At the end of the first phase of work, the results of the project teams were such that they attracted the attention of the senior leaders of the organization.  This was very unexpected given the hierarchical culture of the organization.  One combined client/ consultant team developed a radically new approach for the fastest-growing market segment.  Upon seeing it, senior leadership decided it was better than their existing ‘new’ approach and adopted the thinking; it was integrated into the overall company growth strategy and the next phase of work was given top priority, including more resources being made available.