When ACNielsen decided to radically restructure its European operations while redeveloping services and driving through an extensive cultural change programme, ER Consultants were there to help facilitate the process every step of the way. Working closely with ACNielsen's in-house teams, they provided a diverse range of change management skills as part of a holistic solution that touched every level of ACNielsen's European operation.

Project Background
During the 1990s ACNielsen Europe, the leading international market research company, found itself under pressure. A strong competitor was beginning to capture market share. Clients had grown increasingly sophisticated and were demanding more complex, value added services. And ACNielsen's country-based structure was struggling to meet the increasing demand for information gathered on a pan-European basis.

These issues combined to create a compelling mandate for change and when Brian Chadbourne took responsibility for the European business in 1999, he launched a far-reaching assessment of the situation. The result was an ambitious change programme that aimed to create a totally integrated European business structure, tailored to clients' international information needs and offering a portfolio of value added services.

Underpinning this strategy was a technology programme dedicated to creating a European data factory and at its heart a new operational and marketing strategy - Go to Market - which would fundamentally change the way the business worked. ACNielsen was set to undertake a complete organisational redesign and turn 17 separate country-specific companies into one streamlined business. They would also need to implement these structural changes while driving an equally radical behavioural change to equip staff with the skills to deliver services further up the value chain.

The brief to ER Consultants
ER Consultants began working with ACNielsen during the earliest stages and their brief extended to span the full project life-cycle lasting over three years. ACNielsen had an ambitious top-line strategy for change; ER Consultants would help bring the strategy to life, identifying how it could work in practical terms and managing risks while ensuring far-reaching business objectives were achieved. First they would help design a new organisational structure. Next they would define the competencies that the new business would need for staff to develop from providers of data and information, to consultancy-style business partners with the skills to advise how best their data could be used. And finally, they would help implement these changes across Europe.

In total it amounted to facilitating a radical change in how a long established organisation worked, while ensuring minimal disruption and the maintenance of business as usual.

Approach
ER Consultants' approach always involves creating a bespoke solution and this was clearly a project whose goals couldn't be met by simply rolling out a formulaic change model. Throughout every stage consultants would need to facilitate change while ensuring a skills transfer that would leave ACNielsen equipped to continue its evolution long after the consultants had gone. Thorough planning was also essential: once underway, things would happen fast, so both the consultants and client teams would need to be absolutely clear about the goals, methodologies and parameters within which they would work.

One reason for this was the diversity of cultures and national identities that the project encompassed; a factor that could potentially lead to unpredictable reactions. At the outset ACNeilsen and ER Consultants had to consider the question 'Will national cultures affect response to the change process?' After all, many of ACNielsen's project teams involved employees from up to a dozen different countries.

Preparing for the challenge ahead
ER Consultants built their approach around two pillars of service delivery. First they decided to operate organically, developing a rolling implementation programme that specified actions no more than six months in advance, which provided the freedom to adapt as unpredictable issues from the country teams arose.

It was also essential to rigorously co-ordinate activities behind the scenes, ensuring that everything that was happening at a local level contributed to strategic goals. ER Consultants kept their project team small, comprising five highly experienced consultants who kept up to speed on each other's projects throughout the assignment, using technology to keep in touch when schedules made it impossible to be in the same place at the same time.

Client Testimonials
ER Consultants' ability to work in partnership with people at all levels within ACNielsen was central to relationship's success. "We initially decided to work with ER Consultants because they combined a high level of technical competence with a sound intellectual approach," explains Brian Chadbourne. "They were adept at using all the relevant tools and methodologies, but could manage the complex people issues just as well".

Equally important was the highly consultative role ER Consultants adopted. From the earliest stage their approach was not to force change on an unwilling business but to work with people to identify the best way forward and achieve consensus

For instance when the European Business Areas were being created, decisions had to be made about the best level of integration between the countries involved. High integration was ideal, but issues of national identity suggested that in some situations there could be a case of a lower level of integration. ER Consultants worked closely with the country teams throughout this sensitive process, discussing each option, examining the reasoning behind the team's initial response and working with them to agree on the best model.

The success of the relationship was also a result of ER Consultants offering the flexibility to support ACNielsen with whatever disparate issues arose as the project unfolded. As Brian Chadbourne explains: "They worked with us every step of the way, from business mapping, through implementation and the associated communication issues, and they provided other services when necessary, including team building and executive coaching".

However from Brian Chadbourne's point of view, the most critical factor in the relationship's success was the candour: "One of the things that impressed me most was that ER consultant's team was unshakeably honest. When they worked with managers in our business, they weren't afraid to say if they thought that someone's plans were flawed or that an individual was creating unnecessary obstacles. They can take that position because they have the intellectual strength to closely examine any argument put to them, as well as the confidence in their own understanding and abilities. Those qualities combined to make ER Consultants a powerful force for change."

Success Factors
Over six months ER Consultants' CEO Mark Goodridge worked with ACNielsen's Executive Committee and European President Brian Chadbourne, to translate the business objectives into an organisational design. Mark developed a conceptual organisational framework with two prototype models, one centrally driven, the other a matrix structure. The development process was as open as possible as Brian Chadbourne explains: "ER Consultants worked in a very transparent way. They clearly demonstrated the methodologies and process underlying the designs and worked closely with our team to map how each could work in practical terms". This mapping process involved Mark leading workshops where the team dispensed with traditional charts and box diagrams, focusing instead on business activities and clustering people and resources with common goals.

Theory into practice
The organisational analysis and business modelling resulted in the development of a bespoke matrix structure for the European operation and Mark Goodridge continued to play a key role through developing the new business processes. Working closely with a senior member of the HR team, he visited each European country to identify how the model would best work in practice. "ER Consultants work with the European teams was not only essential for defining how the new model would work," points out Richard Savage, ACNielsen's Human Resources Director at the time, "it was also critical for securing the buy-in of senior managers in each of the countries".

Once the new processes had been created, Mark then led projects defining new roles and accountabilities and identifying which countries would be grouped together into the new European Business Areas. It was also at this point that ER Consultants recommended a critical change in governance, resulting in some power being devolved from the Executive Committee to a new Business Leadership Committee. This body comprised Vice Presidents from the new Business Areas and drove ownership of the change programme down through the organisation while freeing up the Executive Committee to focus on the top-level plans.

For the next stage ER Consultants and ACNielsen's Training & Development team focused on the capabilities required, creating a new competency framework and designing the assessment tools and coaching and training packages that would be needed for implementation. ER Consultants' team also worked closely with ACNielsen's Head of Training & Development to plan the implementation process itself, identifying how to equip staff with the skills to manage change, measuring change readiness and resilience, and helping identify the necessary resources. Together they developed a programme to actively engage people in the new ethos, helping change not only employee behaviour, but also people's fundamental understanding of the business.

Roll-out started with establishing the management teams for each new Business Area. Working with these teams, ER Consultants used change management workshops and coaching to help each lay the foundations for their regional division. Structured discussions and exercises helped teams agree a shared vision, develop strategies for implementing change and explore how obstacles could be overcome.

As well as addressing operational issues, the workshops also used simulations and business games to create a psychological profile of the teams themselves, illuminating potential conflicts and helping them understand how they could best work together.

Delivering change at a local level
As soon as each Area Management Team was up to speed, they had to turn their attention to implementing the changes across their territory. ER Consultants developed a bespoke training programme for the teams' change agents - colleagues equipped with the skills and tools to help plan and manage change across Europe. The programme ensured that teams not only had local access to change management expertise, but that a common approach, language and methodology were created.

ER Consultants continued to work with the Area Management Teams on the ground as they set about delivering the change. Using the new competency profiling tools, they rolled out a Europe-wide programme of assessment, team training and individual coaching to equip staff with the skills to adopt a new work-style, training staff in each country to deliver the packages. They also provided direct support where there were particular problems or strong resistance to change.

For example in one well-established and profitable country business, staff were uncomfortable with becoming part of a larger multi-country operation and industrial action was a risk. Partnering with a local consultancy, ER Consultants tackled these issues by developing a communication programme that included working with key opinion leaders to address directly the issues that were causing concern and providing information that reassured people of the benefits change would provide.

Results and Benefits
By 2004 the change process was completed, the new European structure was in place, and ACNielsen's employees were operating in the new consultancy-based work-style. This led to impressive gains in profitability and substantial improvements in new business wins and client retention - demonstrated by a client satisfaction survey that has shown a significant reduction in dissatisfied clients and a rise in those claiming to be satisfied.

Despite the continuing changes, employee satisfaction increased by at least 16%, and equally importantly, throughout the programme the business experienced no period of weak performance or compromised client service.

For more information contact:  martyn sakol