Analysis of the "Alice in Wonderland" case

Résumé du document

Emma Van Nijmegen was working for Neerlandia, a huge Dutch company which was working on sea shipping. With the opening of the European boarders, their goal was to combine a great company with the best door to door service for clients. That is why they acquired Luijk & Van Vaest (LVV). LVV was at that time recognized for their knowledge, know-how and their proximity to their clients. In 1991, a Human Resources Director became the CEO of LVV, but he had problems with his team because he did not manage them. They were all the time under pressure and did not believe in what they were doing. The personality of this man was also a problem because he used to work on his own instead of working with his team. When Emma finished her studies as a maritime engineer, she heard about Neerlandia. Emma's experience could be compared to 'Alice in Wonderland' because everything she made was great for the company and for herself. Everything was fine in her life, even if her work took so much time. But wonderland is not always easy and people do not always follow you. You have to take care of yourself first and then of the company you work for.

Extraits

[...] It has been done to the managers to have a task and to follow it. But they did not know really what they will have to do. After meetings, Charlotte Beers decided to focus on three points to improve confidence inside and outside of the company: - Client security - Better work, More often - Financial discipline The problem with that is that it is a short-term strategy for the company which needed a long-term strategy as well. The CEO responds that to build the clients' brands, the Ogilvy & Mather Company has to have brand recognition. [...]

[...] A thing that needs to be clarified is that the company was in a low-margin industry, the prices, the quality and the services had not changed for a long time in the company. When she arrived, Emma had changed the way to work. Indeed, the quality of the service and the customer needs will become the most important way to develop the company. The company needed changes. To reach their goal of being quality and customer-focused, she had to change the way of thinking and working of employees. She changed first the culture of the company. [...]

[...] Working worldwide or locally is totally different in the way to analyze things and to work with people. Charlotte Beers had to create a new organization (W.C.S.) to reach her goals and make things easier for customers instead of Emma who had not to create new things but only to reorganize better the company. Appendix: Analyze of the Charlotte Beers case Charlotte Beers arrived in 1992 in Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide as the chairman and the CEO of the company. [...]

[...] The company was driven by the same factors for a long time, which needed to be changed. In fact, Emma had to find a good and efficient team to work with, and a team that believe in her and in her policy. The goal was to define better the market, the clients but also the products, which was not clear before. Seven people will come to this team, four from the last team and three new members. The goal was that she could get views from the market with people who know well the company and at the same time get other views from people from outside of the company. [...]

[...] One of the strength of Ogilvy & Mather is the local support. That is why she can't focus only on the global way. Concretely, the company has to follow the direction of having a new organization, the Worldwide Client Service, to check the work of employees. Indeed, the company has to be better structured to be efficient. The employees who know better the huge companies and the world should move to the W.C.S and the employees who know better a part of the world should stay in their sector. [...]