Our Clients
Syngenta
Background
The world’s growing population create significant demands on global resources. Syngenta is one of the world's leading companies that creates products designed to increase the productivity of crops. Syngenta has more than 24,000 employees in over 90 countries focused on increasing crop productivity. It sells products in all major countries in the world.
The demand for Syngenta products is driven by many external factors such as commodity prices, weather, local go to market strategies and more macro economic factors. In such an unpredictable and seasonal market flexibility and responsiveness in the management of its supply chain provides Syngenta with a strategic competitive advantage. Quick response to customer demands in the face of change creates better customer relations and improved value add.
The need
To increase supply flexibility a global "Responsiveness" team is creating processes and tools which help improve supply chain capability and thus help supply and commercial functions work more effectively, and better together.
The team wanted to engage internal stakeholders, from leaders to marketing and production staff. It needed to help people understand the Responsiveness vision quickly, see the benefits, explore how they could change and adopt new ways of working.
The approach
Syngenta asked Couravel to develop a Big Picture for the Responsiveness team. This would sit alongside the team’s mission, vision and stories of success and help them communicate with and involve colleagues in the change process.
Working with project leader Paul Lidbetter and his team, Couravel developed a graphic that captured the Responsiveness team’s story. The picture illustrated the entire supply chain from uncertainty in the customer’s environment through marketing and distribution to manufacturing and raw material supply. Throughout, details illustrated the Responsiveness team’s work and key messages. It created a tangible, accessible and memorable tool to stimulate challenge, discussion and planning.
A script helped users recap on key messages and provided a prompt of some 40 questions to help Syngenta people get involved in constructive discussion and planning.
The results
No two Syngenta countries are the same. The Picture has provided a common, language-neutral platform that tells the story and accommodates a wide range of local responses. The Responsiveness team have led collaborative education and planning sessions. These have created shared understanding and helped people see where they fit and what they need to do to support the business strategy.
"We have used this with leaders, internal customers and even the Professor of Operational Management at Insead" said Paul Lidbetter. "Couravel has provided a fast and effective way to help us deliver against our project milestones, and introduce new ways of working at an operational and a cultural level."