• 100 day deadline for all major decisions:

Costs            Site closures; target cost reductions

Projects        Selection of combined portfolio

Processes    Selection of core business systems

People          Organisation design & selection

• August was declared a decision ‘holiday'
• September - New Corporate Vision, Mission & Strategy
• Each part of the organisation managed the detail of Integration to suit its needs

1996 review: what worked?

Overall

• Establishing an integration office staffed with own people
• Integration completed within 12 months
• Range of communication methods
• Established confidential feedback mechanism to senior team and published results

Costs

• Had transparent integration targets to meet

Projects

• Used external experts to design an objective process for selection of projects but senior managers implemented it

People

• Differentiated between ‘stayers' and ‘leavers' in terms of HR and OD support
• Redundant staff treated fairly and generously

1996 review: what could have been done differently?

People

• Develop an earlier recognition of cultural ‘blind spots'
• Recognise the inherent bias of using ‘internal' recruitment consultants
• Understand the different redundancy practices globally

Processes

• Make decisions about IT immediately - don't get consensus. Make a decision and implement it

1998 review: key lessons

• Plan your integration process as early as possible - as soon as you have identified potential partners
• Be transparent about any cost saving targets - everyone expects them and the reality is never as bad as the rumour
• Communicate face-to-face to all staff simultaneously when ever possible particularly bad news e.g. networked satellite broadcasts; standing on a table in the canteen
• Get people at all levels of the organisation talking to each other as soon as possible
• Plan Day 1 - who do you want to keep, who do you not want to keep? - who is talking to key players throughout the organisation as soon as the news hits?
• Do as much of it yourselves - particularly the people related issues - don't hide behind consultants

1999 facts & figures

Sales:                                   £7,983 million

• North America 45%
• Europe 34%
• Japan 6%
• Latin America 5%
• Asia Pacific 7%
• Africa & Middle East 3%

R&D Spend:                        £1.6 billion

Employees:                          55,273