Communication Strategy – Change in Procurement Process at Fletcher Electronics

Memorandum

To : Bill VanDyke, Vice President Corporate Procurement – Fletcher Electronics

From : RedArt Communications (Group D – Managerial Communication l IBA l EMBA f)

Date : May 2, 2018

Ref No : 2018/10/EXT

Subject : Communication Strategy – Change in Procurement Process at Fletcher Electronics.

As much as 95% of the change management initiatives fail for the reason that they do not adopt the right communication strategy at the beginning and throughout. Thank you for choosing RedArt Communications for partnering with you in devising the right communication strategy for bringing change in procurement process at Fletcher Electronics. As much as we are excited to be part of this amazing initiative at Fletcher, we are equally geared up to help you in getting the desired results. As per our meeting, we concluded following initial information:

Background: At Fletcher, the procurement procedures are not coordinated. Rather plants are being encouraged to act as separate entities. Overall, it was a complete decentralized approach to the procurement since the beginning.

Action by Management: Hired VanDyke as VP, Corporate Procurement in order to bring overall efficiency to the company, particularly in the procurement and supply function.

Van Dyke’s Objective: To centralize the company’s procurement procedures and reduce the number of suppliers overall.

Proposed Change: All plant managers to alert the VP, Corporate Procurement about contracts above $100,000 which they plan to negotiate at least a week before the day they will be signed.

Proposed Strategy:

We understand that there is a fifteen years’ legacy of how things currently work (decentralization) at Fletcher and there is a complete paradigm shift expected with this change (centralization). Also we understand that the timeline to bring the require change is very short and we must act fast. Hence, considering both the aspects, we recommend to have a mix of Arrow and Circuit approach. We recommend following course of action with possible limitation and advices.

1. An immediate meeting with plant managers should be planned through video conference or through any online medium of communication. This shall be ideally conducted by yourself since it will be a great platform to showcase your credibility since you are new at the company – also at the same time it will be an opportunity for you to enhance your credibility. This shall be done with the objective of sharing the desired objective of Fletcher, the challenge they are facing currently and the proposed change the company is willing to bring. Thus, this will get the buy-in from the plant managers who are then ultimately going to implement the same. We suggest that this shall be completed in 3 Days period. We understand you may not be able to meet with all the plant managers yourself, hence you may consider delegating this task to Susan to represent you and convey your message in the most effective way.

2. It is highly possible that not every plant manager will agree to the proposed solution, however they will surely consider it positively that they were engaged in the process of change.

3. Once the initial meetings are completed, we recommend that a formal announcement shall be made through an internal office memorandum. The announcement shall address to all employees including plant managers, executives, procurement function at head office as well as senior management.

4. We recommend that message should be structured in a way that it is perceived as mutually agreed decision that every stake holder has buy-in on, including plant managers, corporate procurement, and management.

5. The tone shall be direct with a clear focus on what is expected now and everyone has a role to play in order to bring efficiency to Fletcher’s procurement function.

6. A sample communication announcement is enclosed for your reference. (Annexure A)

7. The announcement shall be followed with reinforcement through company newsletters, follow up emails and conversations.

8.

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