Case Study: Making Change Happen at RSA Insurance Group

In May 2008, the Head of Procurement for this global insurance company was feeling overwhelmed. Having successfully lobbied for the overhaul of her function, the outline brief had been agreed with her boss. She was now facing the daunting task of transforming her low profile, ‘cost reduction’ function into a much more strategic value-adding business partner. She knew this change would provide huge benefits to the business and its end customers, but it would take a lot of work to change attitudes and ways of working that had been embedded for years. Managing across a complex matrix structure, this Director had limited direct authority over her teams and her internal customers, and no additional budget for the change programme.

Oak Tree Coaching provided two main services to this change pioneer:

• One-to-one coaching for the Director, focused on her impact and strategic influencing capability

• Change management consulting, which included
  Visioning and story creation
  Review and planning
  Culture change and people engagement planning
  Stakeholder engagement planning.
  

As a result, an excellent job was done in gaining commitment from diverse stakeholders, and the change programme met all its objectives by the end of 2008. The Director received consistently positive feedback from her stakeholders on how swiftly she’d made change happen. Most importantly, the newly named Strategic Sourcing function can now demonstrate a significant bottom line impact: its contribution in 2008 saved the group a further 20% over the target of £45 million.

If you need support and expertise in making change happen, we’d love to talk about how we could help. Contact us now to arrange an informal discussion.