SECTION 1
QUESTION 1 - CASE STUDY (33 MARKS)
The Cosmetics Company
As the recently appointed CEOof a cosmetics company, Anna Jones had a mandate from the
board to shake things up. Tasked with rethinking the organisation's expansion approach, she
had rejected the traditional path of expanding the high street shops. Instead, she increased
online operations - which competitors were also doing - and looked to experiment with
something more innovative.
While her supporters, including the Chairperson, saw her as an experienced consultant who
had lots of energy and ideas about how the company should adapt to a rapidly changing
market, opponents saw her as an industry outsider who had never held an executive position
or even worked in the cosmetics industry- and who still had a lot to learn.
Sam Wilson, the company's HR Director, had challenged every strategic shift Anna had made
including moving away from the siloed structure, letting about 40% of the managers go to
make room for fresh talent, and pushing to transform the hierarchical corporate culture into
a more performance-driven one.
To gain engagement from employees to her proposed changes Anna decided to make visits to
a number of the cosmetic stores. The visits helped her to see how her salesteams throughout
the company's stores were responding to the proposed changes which she had proposed. She
also wanted to use the visits to identify young managers who were ready to move into more
senior positions. Store employees were aware of Anna's proposals for change as they had read
about them in the internal news magazine, which was sent to staff every month, and which
had described the 'exciting opportunities with the expansion of our online offering'.
People were, however, wondering how they would fit into the business going forward. They
wanted to know whether they were going to start closing stores. One store manager asked:
"Will we all be working out of warehouse distribution centres next year?" While another
person asked, "Are we going to lose our jobs?" Anna assured them that no redundancies were
planned. Employees nodded, but they didn't look as though they entirely trusted her.
Later that day Anna was contemplating the questions employees had asked her when Sam
said to her, "we all need to slow down sometimes". From the start, it seemed Sam had not
supported Anna's appointment nor her approach to leading change. Sam warned her that she
was moving too fast and added: "It's going to take a huge push and some big shifts in staffing,
which could result in good people leaving- not just us old folks, but even some of the younger
people who like the way we do business now". Sam also mentioned that he had been
approached by a trade union representative for a meeting to discuss the change plans.
In contrast, Karen Jones, the Marketing Director, was pleased that the company board had
appointed Anna who was someone who understood how the market was developing and
what was needed to stay competitive - something Karen had been arguing for over the years.
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