Case Studies

Rapidly restructuring a French subsidiary of a Dutch multinational The Situation After benchmarking the operations of the French subsidiary with the other subsidiaries of the group, the Board decided to reduce its capacity by half. To manage the restructuring project, the company needed an experienced crisis manager, with an in-depth knowledge of the French labour market and the ability to communicate to the Board in Dutch. The ideal candidate would also be adept at handling delicate situations, given the international nature of the customer base. The Solution Through its international network, WIL Group proposed a Belgian Interim, Crisis Manager with extensive experience in France, who was also a master of both French and Dutch languages and business procedures. The Crisis Manager was responsible for analysing the local situation and rolling out the restructuring plan in line with French legislation. The implementation was supervised and managed by WIL Group in France. The Result After a thorough analysis, it was concluded that the French subsidiary was no longer viable. WIL Group candidate effectively rolled out the procedure for the shutdown in accordance with the local legislation. Through a clear and open communication with the Workers’ Counsel, WIL Group Crisis Manager avoided any social conflicts. The shutdown was concluded successfully and efficiently within the timeframe and budget. This could only have been achieved with involvement from WIL Group and its unique offering of global, cross border business expertise.

Sourcing a leader to Integrate a new German acquisition The Situation A large French group, a leader in materials, just completed the acquisition of a business from a Belgian group. One of the assets is a manufacturing entity in Germany, inside an industrial platform owned by the previous owner. Shortly after the acquisition it is confirmed that the plant manager decides to quit, leaving the new owner with a plant and a team of about 40 employees without a leader. The new owner contacts us a few days before Christmas and lays out to us the urgency and the importance of having a leader in place to steer the integration phase of the new business. The challenge is to quickly take charge of the team, ensure continuity of business through a smooth transition, while monitoring over 40 Transfer Service Agreements, that had been signed by the two parties. The Solution Once we fully understood the nature of the challenges at stake, after a couple conference calls with the new ownership (the VP of Operations and the HR Director), we, at WIL Group France shared all info with our partners at WIL Group Germany and quickly identified in our German talent pool potential candidates. After a careful review of background and references, and a discussion with a shortlist of potential candidates, who have experience in integration processes – and the necessary tact and bias towards action – we set up an interview with our client. A meeting was set up on site, in the factory, two days after the call from our client. All contractual arrangements are finalized between Christmas and New Year. The new Interim Manager started working on site on January 4th. During the first two weeks, we, at WIL Group spent time adjusting the daily communication between the German manager and the French Operations manager. The adequate rhythm of communication and the KPI´s were quickly put in place. The Result In the first step the Interim Manager secured the day to day business on a high level margin. Furthermore, a new reporting system was implemented as well as new health and safety regulations to comply with the standards of the new owner. Secondly a SWOT analysis of the operation was made and as a result projects for further improvements were defined. The project list includes harmonizing multiple contracts of suppliers as well as logistics and maintenance just to name a few. The project plan will save € 1M yearly while a cost reduction of € 150K was achieved in a short period of time. As an additional benefit the Interim Manager made all necessary preparations to fulfill several ISO standards like ISO 9001. All audits passed! Furthermore, the factory achieved an increase of production capacity of 15%. Frederic Marot Achillas Ricky L. Stewart

Integrating a Chinese acquisition for a French chemical giant The Situation A French specialty chemical company has acquired 515 of a 600 employee Chinese private company, twice the size of its first 100% acquisition in China. A smooth integration was a challenge as the objective was to change what was at risk and to maintain the good Chinese procedures after their evaluation. The Solution The client asked a Wil Group member to put in place a Bi-cultural Chinese senior manager, mainly to: Set up mutual confidence between the two shareholders and to improve the safety of the site with the help of French experts. Also to convince the Chinese partner that budgets planning of production, IT, and finance were necessary to accompany the Chinese JV during the first budgeting year. The Result Over 6 months, the mission was conducted in a smooth way by the French acquiring company. Both the client and the top management of the Chinese company were very pleased in having established the foundations of a win win cooperation which is still fully valid a year later.

Supporting an Indian business in an IPO The Situation Quick-hits were requested by the end of the following fiscal year with limited and selective capital expenditure. Plant A: investments had been made to increase capacity significantly, but average time between failure was low. Plant B: with a new steel plant, the bottleneck was the hot rolling mill. The objective was to increase throughput by 50%. The Solution The client asked a WIL Group member to put in place a team of experts (MTBF, TPM, maintenance and metallurgy), on half time basis for 18 months. Coordination was handled by the WIL Group Partner in India. The Result An initial global audit to set up confidence with the owner : (three managers involved) Plant A : a real success through : Cost-loss matrix – TPM 1 and focus on BFTM Plant B : quick results achieved by focusing on a few key performance issues – the second phase is on-going with selective capital expenditure.

Increasing output in a speciality chemical company The Situation Following the departure of the production leader the company wanted to bring the management of the business unit to a higher level by bringing in the right management competences on a temporary basis. Simultaneously, the company was facing a significant volume increase to be fulfilled in the medium term with the current, however at an almost fully utilised capacity. The Solution A member of the WIL Group assigned an Interim Plant Manager with the appropriate technical know-how and management capacities to bring the team and the assets to a better performance. The Plant Manager was given the following objectives: To manage the team to a better performance and increase efficiencies To assure the quality while increasing the output. The Result The project is ongoing. The focus is on reducing the waste and maintaining the quality by improving the ways of working and using continuous improvement techniques (5S, Smed). Capacity increases are being studied, quick wins are being detected and implemented at minimum investment costs.

Reorganising a subsidiary for a Dutch industry service The Situation After benchmarking the operations of its French subsidiary with the other subsidiaries of the group, the Board decided to downsize the French activity to 50% of its current capacity . This procedure required going through the local legislation for a collective dismissal . Given this situation, the company requested a crisis manager with in depth knowledge of the French market and the ability to communicate with the Dutch headquarters. Given the international nature of the customers, it was of the utmost importance that social conflicts were avoided or at least kept to a minimum. The Solution Through its international network, the WIL Group proposed a Belgian Crisis Manager with extensive experience in France who mastered both the French and Dutch languages. The Interim Manager was responsible for analysing the local situation and rolling out the restructuration according to French legislation. The Result After an initial evaluation, the Interim Manager, together with a local consultancy firm realised that the French subsidiary was no longer viable. In accordance with the Board, they decided to shut down the activity completely. The Interim Manager rolled out the procedure for the shutdown in accordance with local legislation (book 1, book 2). Through clear and open communication with the workers counsel, the Crisis Manager avoided social conflicts and the shutdown was concluded in an orderly manner within time and budget constraints.

Spanish International Industrial Company Needed To Reorganise Its French Subsidiary The Situation Our client was a Spanish Industrial Company in the field of crane design and manufacturing. It had revenues of around Euro 100m and manufacturing plants in Spain, Mexico, India and Argentina. Recent years have seen the company drive substantial expansion internationally. The company was seeking to improve the performance of its subsidiaries in Mexico and India. The key to this was the development of an Industrial Plan, but the firm did not have the required resource in-house. The Solution WIL Group’s Latam desk sourced two experienced Interim managers with knowledge and extensive manufacturing experience. They were rapidly deployed into the two subsidiaries. The Result Both managers have now been working for the company on an interim basis for more than two years. The client has confirmed that they are driving excellent results. Both subsidiaries have seen dramatic improvement to the competitiveness of their plants. The interim managers have driven this through reducing production costs and leading improvements to capacity . In Mexico there is now a well-established sales network that is supporting the company to enter new markets in the country and the south of USA. As a final step to this assignment, we have now sourced a permanent successor to the manager in India, who has worked alongside our interim as part of his training for a number of months. The interim manager for India is now moving to Mexico to become permanent manager.

Risk Transformation Programme Enhances Value And Organisational Stability Of Brand Name Company The Situation Odeon Cinema Group, owned by a Private Equity firm, was preparing to sell. But because the Company had not maintained its risk and governance procedures over a period of years, it faced challenges in a number of fundamental areas: The risk profile of the organisation was not fully understood and articulated Group policies were not visible to staff and were not embedded within the organisation 
 Risk management awareness and engagement was low Safety and security was not consistently managed and did not give comfort to the Board Assurance activity was outmoded for a modern large organisation and was not visible to
 senior staff The Solution Richard conducted brainstorming sessions with senior teams across each territory to address key threats and produced a Risk Transformation Plan that encompassed: Working closely with insurance to review and refresh risk transfer needs 
 Engaging external cyber security assessments and implementing remedial actions 
 Unifying risk management approaches across the group 
 Evaluating resources and implementing best practices, including an electronic policy database Revising the audit approach and re-skilling the audit team The Result “Richard has overseen a transformation of our Group’s governance and risk abilities since he joined, and leaves us in much stronger position. Across all our markets, Richard has helped us to implement new controls and standards through clear policies and procedures, and built a solid structure and framework to oversee and manage risk throughout our organisation. We now have a consistent set of policies across the Group in PolicyHub and a skilled risk management team. As well as the obvious benefits of this renewed focus, it was also critical in the run-up to, and success of, our sale process last year – and has made a big contribution to our initial integration work with AMC this year.” Odeon Group CFO

International Marketing Strategy Cultivates A World-Class Brand, Built To Scale The Situation Verisure had an entrepreneurial spirit that had allowed it to expand into 14 different markets and given it a customer retention rate of over 90%, but in doing so had lost its sense of a singular identity: Verisure had 14 different logos, colour pallettes, and websites despite a single core product offering Messaging and advertising had not been consistent, which meant higher costs than necessary and low market penetration Due to the entrepreneurial culture within Verisure, communication across territories was suboptimal which had led to reduced organisational capability The Solution Kimberly defined a roadmap in partnership with other aspects of the organisation, including R&D, operations, and others, to support a clear and effective USP: Working with a London-based advertising agency, multiple campaigns were created based on the brand strategy and then rolled out in a way that allowed for small differences between markets to give each its own unique point of view while remaining consistent Integrating the global marketing team, increasing communication and enabling learnings to be shared across territories Hiring hackers and ex-burglars led to a greater understanding of the threats and allowed for a more powerful product and the story behind it The Result Kimberly’s work led to Verisure becoming one, consistent global brand across its 14 markets, resulting in: Consistent online and offline advertising across markets leading to a 25-30% increase in lead generation Media buying efficiencies created at a cost saving of over €1.5M Development of a crisis comms plan and messaging, an e-reputation strategy, and comms guidance and support for local markets around key product launches, driving penetration +22% The creation of a leading platform for innovation and brand strategy derived from a deep understanding of customers, clearly segmented with an ownable and understandable focus, enabling a significant growth opportunity over the next few years

Italy and India deliver successful cross-border mission The Situation WIL Group members support Isagro SPA Isagro SPA is an Italian company, which was established in 1992 and islisted on the Stock Exchange in Milan. Today, the company employs over 600 people and operates in the research,development, production and distribution of agropharmaceuticals – productsfor crop protection – and investing in the innovation and development ofnew molecules with a low environmental impact. Isagro carries out itsmanufacturing activities at five sites, four in Italy and one in India withdirect distribution in Brazil, Colombia, India, Spain and the United States.It is also present in other countries, with legal entities holding localregistrations. For the last 10 years, the general manager of Isagro India has managed thecompany as a separate entity, and whilst profitable there was little synergywith the rest of the group. During a Board meeting, it was agreed to bringin a new MD to help bring the Indian operation into line with the rest ofthe organisation. Initially this was for a short-term contract, with a viewto then looking for a permanent MD. The Solution The company turned to long-term resourcing partner, TIM Management in Italy.Through the WIL Group association, X-PM in India could then be contacted forrelevant support. X‐PM was quickly able to deploy an experienced senior executive, Mr K NChandrasekaran (KNC), with over 25 years’ experience in the pharmaceuticaland chemical industries. His previous roles included GSK and Novartis –with a focus on the Asia market. Prior to starting his interim role as theMD of Isagro in India, he ran his own consultancy – supporting companieswithin healthcare management. Commenting on the Isagro assignment, KNC said: “The brief was of real interest to me, and I could see clear opportunitiesfor creating and effecting change.” He started in April 2017 – covering four broad business areas, including: Culture – bringing in alignment, in order to create greatercollaboration and a “CAN DO” attitude. Business practices – to introduce simplification, and removing nonvalue-added processes and cleaning up legacy issues. People – introducing performance management systems, delayering ofnumber of management grades and encouraging support across the business,with a management ‘open door’ policy. Relocating Isagro Asia to a new office where the whole team couldwork from the same floor, creating greater integration. A move away from theprevious three floor company layout. The Result Internal surveys that have been conducted indicate that team members reallyappreciate the changes that have been implemented since April 2017. Havingsuccessfully completed phase one, the company is now firmly into the secondphase of its growth strategy with a view to new projects and possible marketacquisitions. KNC added: ” Transforming the Isagro business has provided real opportunity forcontinued growth and success. These are exciting times for all of us inIsagro. “Communication has been vital throughout this whole process, across theentire business. We have initiated work streams as well as a changemanagement committee. And at all times, we have encouraged teamwork. “And I now feel confident that the global management team has achievedgreater visibility of the India operations.” X-PM continues to work with Isagro in other countries including China andSingapore providing talent resources. And KNC’s work continues. Commenting on the concept of interim management in India, KNC said: “Formulti-national companies operating in India, this is proving to be anexcellent concept. “Interim management is a relatively new phenomena in India, and I believemore needs to be done to promote its value across the country. Personally, Ithink it is a great concept, enabling companies to benefit from theknowledge and experience of executives – often coming from entirelydifferent backgrounds and sectors. It’s win-win for everyone.”