Description

A large consumer electronics company was in the process of a $150M+ software implementation. There was little formal communication with internal and external stakeholders, and the program team was significantly behind schedule due to the inability to drive consensus throughout the organization.

Due to the largely decentralized nature of their business, there was significant disagreement between geographies about the centralized business processes that needed to be adopted to support the project charter.

The program office needed to adopt a marketing and communication plan that identified the different needs, communication styles and preferred media of over 45 different stakeholder groups.

Approach

Our approach was to first survey the different stakeholder groups on their understanding and impressions of the program to date. We also asked about cultural biases/preferences towards specific forms of media and asked for each group to nominate communication leads to help drive key messages of the program.

We enlisted the assistance of the President to insure each stakeholder group understood senior management buy-in to the success of the program.

We defined baseline and dynamic metrics that identified participation levels, key message comprehension, and media effectiveness for each stakeholder group.

Results

After implementing the marketing and communications plan, the program office increased effectiveness by the following levels:

  • Participation – 22% baseline improved to 64% after 90 days
  • Comprehension of key program messages – 11% baseline improved to 43% after 90 days
  • Media effectiveness – A total of 11 stakeholder groups worked collaboratively with the program office to modify and enhance communication media during the first 90 days

With the marketing and communications plan in place, the program was able to drive consensus on key issues and ultimately create a single and unified plan for the business across all geographies.