Crimson & Co was engaged by Bristol-Myers Squibb to help establish a central European Capability Centre moving 200-250 FTE from across 30 countries above market. The project was approached in two phases:
- Phase one focussed on creating the ECC, onboarding staff and transferring knowledge
- Phase two focussed on stabilising the model, building the culture and aligning the strategy and ways of working across the European community
At the start of the project most of the functions were managed at a local level in market, therefore a key objective was to capture the knowledge from the markets, transfer it to the ECC, whilst managing the change in market given the impact on local headcount.
It was also important for existing staff in Chester to feel involved in the change, helping to build a better place to work. From the outset the project team was clear we wanted to avoid an “us” and “them” mentality and wanted to create an inclusive culture in line with BMS values.
Crimson & Co managed the overall project timeline, working collaboratively with the BMS leadership team to ensure new staff were effectively onboarded and existing staff felt involved in the change and shaping of the site culture.
Crimson’s goal directed approach to project management and the focus on people meant the ECC ramped up services before the official go live date and business continuity was maintained throughout.
Crimson & Co continued to support the project during phase 2 facilitating various workshops involving the markets and the ECC. Whilst different workshops focused on different stakeholder groups, the goal was to improve ways of working with markets to increase the level of trust, understanding and a mindset of collaboration between the teams. The varied approaches taken by the team results in authentic discussion and improved perception of the services offered by the capability centre, recognising people understand the business and market needs. The mindset of the teams in the ECC is focussed on quality and being customer centric.
Today the European Capability Centre is a multicultural site with a strong inclusive culture and excellent staff retention. It is recognised as a centre of excellence, highly collaborative, innovative, and well connected to the markets.
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