Case Analysis - Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide
Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide (A)
Document purpose: suggestions to increase acceptance of Ogilvy & Mather’s new Vison on employees below senior executive management.
Problem definition
December 1993: Charlotte Beers assesses the progresses made by the company after she became CEO: she realizes that clients love the Brand Stewardship concept, but most employees, below executive levels, have not embraced the newly created Vison. The problem I will focus in this document is the following: the majority of employees did not embrace the new Vison. I will analyze why this is a key problem, why it is happening and I will propose steps to accomplish more acceptance.
Analysis
Brief Background
Major events have shaped the history of the company in the recent years: first the hostile takeover, 1989, then the loss of key accounts and credibility in the business. Many key senior employees have left in the 2 years following the takeover. The company Vison has been: “just keep doing the same thing, just better”, but the world around has been changing. The marketing business has clearly become more global in nature, with "mergers to form mega-agencies and the concept of transporting brands around the world", and customers are demanding for “more service at lower costs”.
Re-creation
Technically the type of organizational change Beers has to face as new CEO of the company is called re-creation: it’s a change introduced in response to an immediate demand, in this case the loss of customers and image. The research indicates that fewer than one in ten re-creations succeed [Leadership for Organizational Change].
Vison and Values Crafting
Beers has accomplished a great step already: the definition of Vison and Values. It is interesting to analyze the process that she used, and why it worked. She:
• Gathered the persons in the company that were more inspired by a creative tension.
• Educated them on the main problems, the “current reality”
Document purpose: suggestions to increase acceptance of Ogilvy & Mather’s new Vison on employees below senior executive management.
Problem definition
December 1993: Charlotte Beers assesses the progresses made by the company after she became CEO: she realizes that clients love the Brand Stewardship concept, but most employees, below executive levels, have not embraced the newly created Vison. The problem I will focus in this document is the following: the majority of employees did not embrace the new Vison. I will analyze why this is a key problem, why it is happening and I will propose steps to accomplish more acceptance.
Analysis
Brief Background
Major events have shaped the history of the company in the recent years: first the hostile takeover, 1989, then the loss of key accounts and credibility in the business. Many key senior employees have left in the 2 years following the takeover. The company Vison has been: “just keep doing the same thing, just better”, but the world around has been changing. The marketing business has clearly become more global in nature, with "mergers to form mega-agencies and the concept of transporting brands around the world", and customers are demanding for “more service at lower costs”.
Re-creation
Technically the type of organizational change Beers has to face as new CEO of the company is called re-creation: it’s a change introduced in response to an immediate demand, in this case the loss of customers and image. The research indicates that fewer than one in ten re-creations succeed [Leadership for Organizational Change].
Vison and Values Crafting
Beers has accomplished a great step already: the definition of Vison and Values. It is interesting to analyze the process that she used, and why it worked. She:
• Gathered the persons in the company that were more inspired by a creative tension.
• Educated them on the main problems, the “current reality”