Critical to the success of the project was the allocation of sufficient dedicated people resource, both centrally and across regions and functions. A central Project Management team was set up to ensure this important strategy was well executed. Two Finance professionals were appointed at the centre to provide governance, analysis and monitoring support and dedicated individuals were appointed in the key functions of Supply Chain, R&D, Global Marketing, Procurement, IT, and Communications. Each of the three geographic Regions also appointed a dedicated representative to drive the project and achieve savings objectives. The project was structured as follows:
Design/Charter/Resources > Data gathering/Analysis/Interpretation > Planning/Execution design > Implementation/Score keeping
The design, charter and resources development was carried out by the Project team and included establishing clear Project goals, scope and boundaries, and obtaining Senior Management agreement to the Project timetable, resourcing, budgets and governance. The Data gathering analysis and interpretation was driven by the Project Finance team and included obtaining the required cost data for analysis and opportunity identification, coordinating any other on-going efficiency projects and understanding the cost and organisation structure, by function and region. This data analysis also involved gathering SKU and formulation data, by Brand. Planning and Execution design involved establishing the teams by function in order to identify saving opportunities, both low-hanging fruit such as SKU reduction and raw material and packaging standardisation and more complex challenges such as restructuring, 3rd party alliances, and process change. The Project team coordinated the work of all the various stakeholders to ensure agreed plans were implemented. They also ensured that the business was kept well informed of progress against targets.
