This clearly made execution of marketing strategies extremely difficult, as in the old organizational structure, country-based marketing managers could decline to sell a specific product or an entire brand.
Jager, who had extensive experience in Asia-pacific prior to taking on the CEO role, had seen through many of his product introductions how having a strong geographical focus was actually a disadvantage for P&G. His work on the SKII market definition and planning in Japan was a case in point (Bartlett 2004).
What is troubling however in the definition of Organization 2005 is the high level of prioritization on process standardization, over and above the finely tuned execution of regional marketing campaigns and the ability to measure results to the market level. That ability to measure results is in effect lost with the development of an enterprise-wide SAP system that focuses on product line sales history and availability of data.
Most troubling about Organization 2005 from a policies perspective is the lack of agility it gives P&G to respond to the market. While Jager continually re-assures the company and investors that with the new triad organizational model and the aggressive pursuit of new markets with new products will deliver exceptional growth, Jager is in effect taking P&G in two directions at once. Wanting to have a highly standardized series of processes without the necessary integration to policies contributes to the confusion of how GBS and MDO will overcome their inherent conflicting roles and metrics of performance they are measured on to contribute to the success of GBUs, which will rely heavily on each of these two critical areas. Policies for each component of the triad of Organization 2005 then are not synchronized with one another, yet capitalize on the urgency P&G's leadership has to gain ever-increasing cost reductions through process standardization. Ironically Organization 2005s' structure could be aligned with market agility yet is, from a policy and political perspective, more reinforcing of process standardization and cost reductions as a result. P&G also faces the challenges of having to confront the fact that Organization 2005, from a policy standpoint, does nothing to alleviate pressure on the most competitive aspect of their company, and that is pricing. While P&G move up market with price increases during the Organization 2005 timeframe, competitors do not follow suite, and in fact drop prices. One does need to give credit to P&G however for organizing globally by product line, as in that organizational context it would be potentially possible to complete price elasticity and price optimization through their supply chains and to their retailers' shelves.
What is also glaring of the omissions from the strategy-supportive processes however is the complete lack of focus on how to capitalize on the emerging distribution channel of mass merchandisers, including Wal-Mart, Costco, and others. Further, there is no major policy definition on supply chain collaboration with other companies also selling to Wal-Mart, Costco and other mass merchandisers. Organization 2005 is definition in the policies pertaining to su0pply chain visibility, collaboration, forecasting and most critical, pricing stability against the competitive pressures of mass marketers. The demands of this challenge could be met using GBU as an organizational catalyst to change, yet the internal lack of balance would need to be dealt with first and overcome.
Exercising Strategic Leadership
Durk Jagers' vision is to capitalize on the strengths of P&G to quickly develop new products for new markets and then relying on a triad-based organizational structure, launch new products while achieving business process standardization. A complex vision, Jager sees the synchronization of each organizational unit (GBS, GBU, and MDO) as delivering on business process management (BPM) and business process reengineering (BPR) while at the same time scaling global programs to local markets. Looking for standardization in business processes while at the same time looking for agility in the market is a conflict-intensive strategy, yet one if executed correctly could lead to long-term significant competitive advantage.
What Jager does not address however from a strategic leadership standpoint are the most critical aspects of where P&G is suffering the most, and that is in increasing the supply chain efficiency, including order management, supplier collaboration, and the need for P&G to become more adept at interpreting customer demand in its many markets. The entire focus of Organization 2005 on a customer-to-innovation continuum is solidly on innovation alone, completely disregarding how to grow existing customer sales.
What's missing in the strategic leadership standpoint is the development of a Demand Driven Supply Network (DDSN) as defined by Asgekar, Fontanella and Swanton (2004). The DDSN model looks to define how transparent and agile supply chains are in response to customer demands. Ironically one of the most critical of business processes that could benefit from greater standardization, which is supply chain-based order management, is not specifically addressed by Jager or the...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now