Exercise on Change management

Step 1

Team Members – Amith Panicker, Mahendra Dubey, Pinaki Moitra, Vivek Khandelwal

We have chosen a case of complete success and the nature of business in which the company
is operating into beverages connected with soya milk and mango drink, syrups in chocolate and
strawberry flavours, confectionary and few other products. The company was manufacturing
the products and selling it across various channels. For the purpose of this case study, the name
of the company would be ‘Chocoberry’ (original company name has been changed). Here, we
are going to share one of the change episode. This company had requested us to manage their
Modern Trade Sales which was being managed by another organization previously. The
mandate for us was not only to improve their de-growing sales but also improve their visibility
and relations with the retailers.

The scenario shared above follows the eight steps to transforming of the client organisation.
Smollan contributed and participated actively in the entire process. Sharing key aspects –

- Establishing a sense of urgency: Post the decision was taken by Chocoberry to engage
Smollan services, our team very closely examined the market and competitive realities
resulting in highlighting all possible opportunities that were available in the market to be
explored by the brands available with the Client.
- Powerful Guiding Coalition: Teams at both Chocoberry and Smollan were aligned for the
common goal and all possible perspectives and market centric challenges were discussed
closely between the teams. The top team engaged on a timely basis to lead the change
efforts.
- Creating a Vision: The vision was clear right from the beginning of the engagement and
all possible strategies were being built around targeting to reach the defined vision.
- Communicating the Vision: Conference, Training and Meetings were done as per defined
plan to ensure that the vision is seamlessly aligned and communicated to all the
stakeholders. New ways of working were driven in the market in line with brand norms
and expectations.
- Empowering others to act on the vision: There were obstacles in the form of old ways of
working or existing norms which required change with evolving market conditions and
these were addressed by the Brand team from time to time.
- Planning for and creating short term wins: Creation of process improvements was give
immense importance and newer ideas/creativity was given a huge boost with rewards and
recognition for the teams working towards achieving the vision.
- Consolidating improvements and producing still more change: Growth was visible with
the change in ways of working through people who were hired towards executing this
vision. Several changes were brought in towards day to day engagement levels to ensure
more and more orders can be garnered at the store level
- Institutionalizing new approaches: New success factors were recorded and adopted as a
process towards sustaining the growth levels for future.

Step 2

Yes, we have done the discussion with the Senior Management and the required alignment has
been done.

Step 3

Some of the key data and insights are as follows:

- Post completion of 1st quarter of the business, it was compared with the similar period of
the previous year and following was the comparison:

The above shows business growth by 10% at 253 Lacs as against 230 Lacs over the previous
year. This trajectory kept on improving as the Smollan team started working aggressively in
the marketplace. Following is the trend which was observed for a period of 7 quarters beginning
Mar Qtr 2013 (As shown above).
The above was achieved with all regions having hit the best ever sales and thus the best quarter
in history of Chocoberry.

Smollan had significantly improved the coverage and following has been the trend on unique
and total outlet coverage:
In the period comprising 7 to 8 quarters, Smollan generated additional visibility valuing in
excess of over 2 Crores (Rs. 20 Mn) through additional space captured through building the
relationship at the store level. This resulted in huge improvement of the market share of the
Chocoberry products and the growth across category the top 3 categories was in excess of 20%
(Eg., 60% became 80%)

All the good work done by the team was quite visible in the comments shared by the Client
team during their market visit. Sharing a few of them below –

Step 4

Key narrative – Growth in sales and launch of their portfolio of SKU’s which the company has
not been able to do for the last few quarters.

Need for change – It was because of the crisis which Chocoberry was going through both
internally due to lack of knowledge and externally due to lack of Sales team participation.

Way it was planned and initiated – Engagement started with them 6 months before the closure
of the previous sales team and the team’s old ways of working was analyzed in depth to assess
the on-ground situation.

People Involved – The involvement was at the highest level at both the organizations starting
from CEO to Sales Head and Business Unit Head alongwith other key stakeholders.

People personalities – There were different kind of personalities at the Client end who were
managing key positions however having limited exposure to on-ground situations and the
challenges that the sales team face in day to day operations. Legal also posed a lot of challenge
towards closure of agreement and key terms and expressed rigidity.

Preferences/Objectives/Motives – Their preference was to operate in a certain defined way and

openness to change was a challenge. While the objective was to have the business grow
however the resource allocation towards this took time to be understood.
Their role and nature of participation/contribution or not in the change etc. – Their participation
in the process was minimal to the extent of sharing essential info or targets. The focus from
Smollan was to encourage the client teams to support in terms of stock availability of the
desired SKU’s basis market demand. Some of the key top members were embracing change
since one of our suggestions to have a trial pack introduced became a big hit in the marketplace.

The processes of change (obstacles faced, phases/stages/procedures) – The change process

involved series of activities and process which was taken up by Smollan in different phases.
They are as follows:

- Market survey was done for 3 months just to address the resistance that the retailers have
in keeping the products of Chocoberry
- Sales Officers were instructed to focus on building relationships by spending time in every
store
- Market benchmarking was done comprehensively to study the competition and their
market share at a store level
- Coverage of store was a big aspect of change management
- Retailer skepticism was addressed by building confidence in them on timely and
continuous deliveries
- Sampling was initiated in the top stores to ensure customers start experiencing the top
products in the categories

End results / outcomes – The result of this change episode resulted in sales growth which was
much beyond expectations. At the beginning of the change process, sales were 163 Lacs and
at the end of 7th Qtr, it was 561 Lacs. The growth was in excess of 240%. Smollan team became
instrumental in launching more than 10 New SKU’s in this short period as against the previous
2 years. The Modern Trade stores across the country had the Chocoberry product portfolio
available.

Sustain/Institutionalization – This level of growth was not only sustained but also exhibited
continued and healthy growth for the subsequent quarters. Each region reached a new high and
new portfolio continued to get launched every quarter.

Step 5

We will incorporate all that needs to be done in this case post your feedback. Yes, Smollan will
be open to having this as a case post prior approval.

We agree that it the case can be used within the organization (Smollan) for reading, training,
learning and/or reference purposes.