Our client a large American multinational beauty company had recently acquired multiple brands in a strategic move to widen and grow its product portfolio. They had decided to integrate the Planning, Manufacturing, and Logistics Network of the acquired companies in order to capture the foreseen synergies.

The consolidation process was extremely challenging because it required a high level of coordination across +250 professionals in +30 countries in Europe, USA, Canada and EMEA, +15 production sites, and +76 distribution centers around the globe.

Moreover, the benefits related to this integration were desired to be captured as early as possible given the strategic importance to the company worldwide.

Given the accelerated timelines and complex challenges, a large Integration team was deployed to work fully on-site, bolstering the client team. This ensured close proximity with all stakeholders, on the job training/change management for staff, better communication across the countries, and an ability to resolve unforeseen issues swiftly.

We assumed the project management responsibility of the Manufacturing Footprint and Distribution Centers consolidation programs preparing a detailed plan considering all involved regions, business areas, and processes. To ensure the forecasted synergies would be realized, a robust PMO was deployed to track not just deliverables, but also operational objectives and benefits.

We supported the client in delivering the integration in a very aggressive timeline with minimal business disruption. Including the closure of some manufacturing sites in addition to the transfer of production lines. In distribution, in just 6 months we coordinated the building and starting-up of distribution centers across multiple countries and managed the incorporation of 3rd party logistics.

Beyond the business implementation results, Integration ensured the engagement, alignment, and cooperation along with the entire transition of the +30 involved countries. This ensured a sustainable operational transformation after our team had rolled-off.

A family-owned retail company was acquired by a large investment fund. Unfortunately, due to a combination of variables and the economic context in Brazil, the company experienced a drop in profitability.

An urgent turnaround of the situation was needed and a clear target of improvement of 2.5x EBITDA in 3 years, and a change in leadership, was set by the investment fund. Integration was selected as the consulting firm to address and solve this challenge, given our expertise in the sector, pragmatism, and speed to delivery.

A deep diagnosis to identify value creation opportunities in all areas of the company was done with two main objectives: 1) bring operating efficiency in the current business model and 2) generate future value in new business and commercial models. From those opportunities, we built a cohesive roadmap of projects and initiatives to reach the pursued target in a 3 years timeframe.

Once the path to follow was clearly designed, a variety of project and change management methodologies were put in place by our team: a ramp-up plan, detailed work fronts plan, project governance for weekly tracking, structured risks and issues escalation matrix and procedures, management tools for monitoring and communicating, and constant leadership involvement through the on-site and disciplined meeting to expedite project decisions.

At Integration, we do value professionals, engagement, ambiance, motivation, and inspiration as key enablers of major and deep transformations. With this in mind, we also developed a new variable remuneration and talent retention model to drive important behaviors within the company and culture.

The project delivered above expectations, reaching 2.6x EBITDA in the 3 years timeframe, and broke historical records in terms of both revenue and profitability.

Beyond the business result, the company benefited from achieving a renewed spirit of collaboration and improvement and was left better prepared to tackle future challenges with improved processes/tools/governance for project management.

After the multi-million dollar acquisition of a national consumer goods manufacturer by a global household brand, Integration was hired as the clean team, to plan and manage the Post Merger Integration process.

The strength of the acquired business’ portfolio, including sales and distribution, combined with the know-how and capabilities of the global company created a great opportunity for business expansion; however, given the large sizes of the two companies and the

Given the size of the deal, our main goal was to ensure the two organizations would be working together as one right from Day 1, avoiding any major operational issues.

With this in mind, we focused on developing (i) a clear and specific roadmap to concretely define the companies end-state vision and integration strategy, from transition plan to the longer-term and (ii) a highly detailed 100 Day plan to ensure teams and actions could be highly coordinated in the early phases.

On the people side, we needed to work across parties to ensure the people, cultural strengths and best practices of each company were preserved. An effective stakeholder-management process was implemented in an intensive and frequent basis to monitor and address engagement, concerns, and ensure professionals’ commitment and performance along the merger process.

The success of the implementation was characterized across multiple metrics:

• From Day 1 there was minimal disruption to operations – with business KPIs all remaining in optimal levels
• The synergies outlined in the Business Case were realized
• Successful internal communications to more than 3,500 employees with 100% of key professionals staying within the company during the transition
• External communications, that resulted in no negative impacts on customers, providers, or market perception

A leading global Consumer Beauty company had reached a moment where they were experiencing high performance in Modern Trade channels, but significantly lower performance in the Indirect Traditional Trade channel. The company came to understand that it was drastically under-indexed in sales via distributors in key-opportunity regions, and a majority of sales teams were reporting problematic distributor relationships.

To combat this challenge, they asked for Integration’s support in developed a global methodology that could support their local operations and boost indirect trade results.

In our first phase of the Programme we built a solid foundation for sustainable change. This took shape as a detailed, bespoke “playbook” that was not limited to the needs of emerging markets, but instead offered commercial teams at all stages, ideas for taking their distributor relationships to the next level, including the ability to:

• Map and select target distributors
• Run complete assessments of distributor performance, financial health and operational capabilities
• Design, implement and monitor annual plans to develop distributor capabilities and improve results for the client and its partners
• Terminate relationships with underperforming or operationally inadequate distributors

The playbook balanced the need for a global approach with fitting the local realities of each market. From the outset, we developed the methodology in strong collaboration with the regional representatives in each continent.

Next came an implementation phase dubbed ‘local acceleration’; where we aimed to guarantee the practical, effective implementation across selected zones.

Over the course of four years we supported the practical application of the methodology across 12 vastly different countries (ranging from Pakistan to Peru), running training sessions and adapting guidance appropriately to local needs. Each of these countries represented diverse challenges, ranging from finance issues to process improvements to deeper strategic discussions.

This highly tailored approach resulted in pragmatic recommendations for each market and enabled quick implementation. At the same time, the standard nature of the programme across countries made it possible to transfer best practices from market to market.

As a consequence of the successful implementation, sales by the distributor have outpaced growth in modern trade by 5 percentage points, thanks to significantly closer cooperation with distributors (e.g. (+123% Pay For Performance Agreements, +43% Joint Distributor Business Plans), while simultaneously reducing days of inventory by 16% on average.