The company has devel­oped and offered a newproduct, which was not an obvious exten­sion to the existing product range. Within the company, a small group was respon­sible for the marketing and posi­tioning of the new product. This group was highly moti­vated, but was perceived as an island and was not supported by the company.

The new product called for a change of image both inter­nally and exter­nally. The imple­men­ta­tion proceeded very slowly and uncer­tainly because it was perceived as a threat inter­nally and as a weak posi­tion exter­nally. Internal lack of compre­hen­sion compli­cated the work processes of the company, and the weak external posi­tion fostered confu­sion for customers.

Inter­ven­tion:

In the first step, we focused on the common­al­i­ties of existing and new products.We devel­oped a series of work­shops with the respon­sible persons, structures,and supple­men­tary vari­ants to the existing range of prod­ucts. In another ongoing work­shop, we collab­o­rated on the unique features of each product section and the cross-product assis­tance measures neces­sary to develop useful synergies.

It became clear that there were systemic barriers between the repre­sen­ta­tives of the estab­lish­ment and the initia­tors of the new orien­ta­tion. We orga­nized a special medi­a­tion work­shop, in which the repre­sen­ta­tives from both direc­tions estab­lished an agree­ment mech­a­nism, so that the problem was solved.

Subse­quently, a bonus system was defined and imple­mented, which promotes mutual and sustain­able support. The next step was the inte­gra­tion of the new group into the existing corpo­rate culture and the making of its work oper­a­tions and market plans trans­parent. We imple­mented a pairing system, with two people working as coor­di­na­tors between the two product areas, in order to regu­larly exchange infor­ma­tion and jointly coor­di­nate possible activities.

We moder­ated these work­shops. For this approach, we used our busi­ness and psychoso­cial know-how as navi­ga­tion help. As a result,internally and exter­nally, the company estab­lished a new image of itself as serving clients and working with transparency.

Results/Effect: