The Client: Danone Fresh Dairy Products division is a €11.8 bn business employing over 47,000 people around the world. The R&D function helps the division develop new product innovations in the dairy food products area working on global brands such as Activia; Oikos; Actimal; Danicol and Densia.
The Work We Did: Working with the head of R&D sensei was asked to help develop the global R&D leadership team (CODI) take them on a journey towards high performance status. As part of this work we: Helped the leadership team develop a new R&D strategy; support the central team leading their global transformation programme in the R&D function; and coach some senior members of the R&D leadership team based in Paris.
This work was designed to dramatically improve the rate of innovation in the R&D pipeline in order to address the decline in the divisions global sales and resulted in a new R&D strategy and supporting global organisation aligned to a few mission critical ‘Must Win Battle Plans’ . We transferred our skills, knowledge and people engagement techniques to the key R&D leaders so they can continue to lead the transformational change that was required throughout the global R&D community.
Client Testimonial – Frederic Rene VP Global R&D for Danone Dairy commenting on a cascade session sensei helped design:
The level of energy was terrific and the preparation and selection of the leadership team made them come to the session with great spirit and engagement. I felt this energy from minute one and I took it to raise it to the highest level possible till closure as the key tangible transformation catalyst. The balance of the 3 days was correct and we used many of your inputs to maintain both pace and energy, the format you designed was very appreciated with very few PowerPoint presentations and lots of drawings on paper boards, dynamic moves of people and time for discussion and relationship building.
The alignment and contribution of all R&D Dairy Codi member was another key factor of success, as many of the attendees were having in mind the image of a poor Codi alignment and complicity prior to the event, and with part of the agenda given 100% to Codi members this contributed to make the transformation plan easier to implement.