Discuss what Beers is trying to accomplish as CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.
This case is about an organizational change of Ogilvy & Mather (an advertising agency). The four core disciplines of the company include advertising, sale promotions, direct marketing, and public relations. The aim of solving the case study is to clear the concepts of organizational change, things require during the process and factors important to make the change successful.
Ogilvy & Mather is an agency that was found by David Ogilvy in 1948. The agency designed and run numerous campaigns due to which the company is recognized as “the class act of Madison Avenue” (Ibarra & Sackley, 1995). After the retirement of Ogilvy, when an immense decline in organizational profitability had been observed the Charlotte beers has been appointed as a chief executive officer of the organization. When Charlotte joined the company she observed that the company is going through several challenges such as the company does not have clarity of vision that had led the company to unclear direction, each executive had its perspective. The company was lacking in teamwork abilities, the globalization of advertising occurred as the challenge for the company, and the company image had beleaguered because customers were rating the company below against competitors.
Several studies are evident that confidence of talented people has a positive impact on the performance of the organization. Some of the researchers that have concluded this include Bandura, (1997); Mittal, Ross & Tsiros, (2002) and Jong, Ruyter & Werzels, (2006). However, at O&M talented people were lacking in confidence that was amongst the major causes that led the company towards decline. Due to shaken confidence, the company had to face the loss of clients, and lack of open communication did not allow the company to make changes and innovations. When beer joined the organization, the need of change was prominent.
Charlotte Beers wanted to activate the existing assets (creative talent, a vast network of offices that exist worldwide, and distinct multinational clients). She was trying to accomplish the advertising quality that can attract the customers and satisfy them. She decided to provide a clear direction to people; she observed that the reason not to have famous advertisements is the lack of communication and collaboration among major departments. Therefore, she tried to improve collaboration. She wanted to accomplish the brand stewardship and wanted to create the clear vision and mission for the organization that can provide the people direction. She sought to maintain the control over logical and emotional relationship that exists between a product and customers by recognizing it as the demand of the clients. To foster the change and giving direction, she proposes three strategies namely client security, better work more often, and financial discipline.
