Consulting area: Organization

From 2016 to 2018, we supported an international life science Group in its comprehensive transformation to a new Group organization. The goal of the program was to create an integrated structure across the Group divisions with a uniform core brand. This was intended to strengthen innovation and increase customer focus, as well as achieve business process excellence.

To achieve this, the transformation involved adapting the Group organization to the changed strategic focus, implementing a new target organization at the global and local levels, and introducing a new management model for a large proportion of Group and service functions. As a key component of the realignment, we supported Group-wide cultural change management during the reorganization.

The transformation program was set up in several project phases. In the design phase, the blueprints for the new organizational structure and governance models were defined. The implementation concept designed in this phase formed the basis for our support in the transition phase that followed. The aim of this phase was to develop the detailed design of the organizational structure and governance models in all divisions, functions, global responsibilities and country organizations, and to implement the structure and models. To achieve this, the original implementation concept was further detailed during the course of the project and adapted and supplemented on the basis of constantly changing requirements.

The project assignment spanned more than two years and was accompanied by a rotating team of acondas consultants.

In this project, acondas successfully collaborated with the customer project team, in-house consulting, relevant Group units such as HR and communications, and with managers and multipliers in the individual divisions, functions, and country organizations.

A key factor in the success of the project was the close integration of project and Group-wide change management.

In addition to implementation planning and control in the project management office, we also supported the development and rollout of a comprehensive concept for active cultural change. Our support ranged from preparing decisions for the Group Board of Management, e.g., as part of Day 1 readiness, to involving multipliers and change agents at the work level.

In addition to successfully implementing the reorganization within the planned cost and time frame, we were able to ensure sustainable implementation of the organizational changes and a smooth transition to a new management model. Our active change management not only ensured that the cultural change was integrated into existing projects and formats. Rather, the entire organization, including top management, demonstrated a willingness to continue driving the cultural change and living the values we were striving for beyond the official end of the project.