Our Work.

Emerson hosted a retreat for a major university’s technology services directors. It was an opportunity for leaders to focus on fiscal year goals and leadership development.

Directors discussed and took ownership of strategic objectives. They also developed consistent messages about objectives to share with technology services employees.

A major online news and social media company is always looking for ways to improve. In 2009 they wanted to kick employee skills up a notch, clarify roles and streamline operations.

Leadership asked Emerson to focus on their key departments: Product Development/Marketing, Product Engineering and Finance.

Together, we built functional, professional and industry capability models, defining specific competencies – over 200 in all. We re-designed roles, built targeted assessments, and determined learning strategies to help people develop their skills and reach the new standards.

The company rolled out the program to its entire global organization.

The human resources department of a major municipal utility district was overworked. Their top human resource executive was charged with implementing dozens of initiatives to ensure the organization had the people power to fuel its business and remain competitive.

We facilitated the development of a strategic HR plan and then helped leadership develop an operating model for HR work across the district. We helped the team determine resource requirements and create an implementation plan.

A year later, their HR executive wrote, “We have a hard time recollecting another consultant that had such a successful impact for us.”

A major pharmaceutical company was embarking on an ambitious change: they wanted to provide infrastructure to scale their business, ensure quality across suppliers, create robust processes and deliver with excellence. Part of the solution was implementation of Oracle’s Product Lifecycle Management.

They also knew they needed improved change agility, so they would be ready to exploit the inevitable wave of changes in the coming years. They asked Emerson to help.

We started with assessment, diagnosis, and detailed planning. Leadership worked with us to distill strong change messages; the process got rave reviews from participants. We assessed impacts, then identified and institutionalized new behaviors and habits. We did this for both the transition and the steady state. We used the principles of familiarity, control, and success to make sure the changed behaviors “stuck” with employees.

We also aligned all new processes, behaviors and training with culture, so our client could use the power of its culture to create momentum.

A specialty foods producer wanted to improve their sales process, particularly for their premiere brand. They launched a sexy million-dollar ad campaign that included a variety of pop icons like Levi Johnston, Snooki and Charlie Brown. To gain the success they hoped for, however, they knew they needed an aligned sales team to tell the same story.

They hired Emerson to help.

Before we began our work, the sales team had pushed this brand to their grocery clients by focusing on health benefits and the fact that this company is the biggest grower/supplier of nuts in the world. We reframed their story to be about limited shelf space, small margins and the ROI that would result by adding even just one bin of long-shelf-life pistachios on the floor.

The sales team also leaned toward “wonderful results” as part of their message but, instead, we had them focus on the “squeeze” – the challenge for profit in a tight market.

The result? Our message frame was incorporated into their sales pitch. To ensure continued success, we followed up and with sales training to ensure all future sales pitches were aligned around the common story.

A nickel a day keeps the doctor away, or something like that.

One of the world’s largest providers of consumer and commercial products needed help communicating the value of thoughtful sourcing practices.

Every year, they were paying more than 10,000 external vendors, many of which were only used only once a year – a costly and inefficient practice. Leadership realized that saving just five cents on every vendor dollar would add up to tremendous savings – savings that could be reinvested in their brands. But to do that, they needed every employee to help.

Emerson came up with a branding idea that all employees could relate to: 5 Ways to Save. By following five easy ways to think about spending on indirect goods and services, the company could reach its goal. We worked with our client to create a campaign to generate awareness across corporate headquarters, its brands and its distribution centers.

Employees embraced the challenge and the company is on its way to big savings, one nickel at a time.

A pioneer in network storage and data management needed to upgrade its own IT package. Its 4,000-strong sales force needed the latest tools at their fingertips to stay on top of the competition.

Change is always hard – especially for ERP solutions in fast-paced environments. That’s why this NASDQ 100 Company turned to us.

Our work included mapping business processes, developing change leaders, fostering global sponsorship and creating culturally attuned communications – all to prepare those who fuel the company’s sales to use their new tool and retain their competitive edge.

A major wholesale supply company was in the midst of incredible changes. Within the same year, they acquired their major competitor, dissolved their relationship with their former parent company and started deployment of SAP across their business.

They turned to Emerson to lead the SAP change.

Our team helped determine how the organization would be impacted, designed communication and executive sponsorship to mitigate those impacts and created business readiness teams. We also facilitated ongoing dialogue between the project team, the integrator and the business.

We forged a partnership with human resources, IT and other departments — creating a stronger project, surfacing data governance issues and ensuring a series of successful deployments.

A major university’s IT department provides technology services to a world-class university, so there isn’t much room for error. The 360-member team was proud of its outstanding work, but leaders knew IT needed to improve how they manage, plan and forecast when partnering with university clients and health care subsidiaries. They asked Emerson to help improve their value to the organization.

​We conducted a series of highly facilitated working sessions and collaborated with key stakeholders to reshape the IT division and make sure project management and business acumen complemented their team’s top-notch IT skills. The result? Twenty-two job models and associated competencies, a training needs analysis for each role and a training development plan. The results were integrated into curriculum planning, recruiting, career progression planning, succession planning, and performance management. With our help, the university met its goal: an IT department worthy of the Harvard of the South.

A new health care provider came on the scene in 2005 and grew quickly. In 2011, they expanded their kidney care business even further, prepared for regulatory changes and shifted to a new operating model. This was a lot of change for a young company, so they asked Emerson for help.

We worked with them to develop the right organization structure and operating model. We also helped leaders develop a strong and clear message to rally the troops. Executives and managers acted as change agents; they were armed with a “playbook” and workshops to get all employees pulling in the same direction.

The result was a successful transition to a new way of doing business that will serve the company as it grows.

When a technology services company wanted to move its sales team from a traditional, transactional approach to a more consultative sales model, they reached out to Emerson.

Although they knew where they were and where they wanted to go, they had been struggling to gain traction. Emerson helped them solidify their vision, identify barriers, and focus on the critical behaviors to bring their vision to life.

We met with the team and conducted interactive workshops to bring together their best thinking and our behavior change expertise. The result was a solid plan and support materials to unify the team toward their vision.

Emerson developed and facilitated a North America Marketing Leadership summit, an annual meeting of a major oil and gas company’s 200-person leadership team who gather to establish objectives and address obstacles.

We designed and facilitated an interactive session that helped them internalize the overarching business goals, identify immediate constraints, and develop ways to address them.

A major oil and gas company launched an enterprise-wide effort to simplify their downstream operations. Their goal was to better equip the organization to execute strategy, focusing on the value chain and the processes that drive results. They asked Emerson to help mobilize employees and management toward this goal.

We launched a sponsorship strategy, employee engagement program and communication plans. We also built web/portal resources and change management training. The guiding principle was that everyone, from leaders to front-line employees, drive the transition to an even nimbler, more powerful organization.

One of the auto industry’s biggest tech providers was facing a huge change. After it spun off from its parent company, major functions like Finance needed to operate independently. At the same time, they took aim at some impressive profitability targets. And that was just the start.

There were many more waves of change scheduled to hit the same group of employees. To accomplish its vision, leadership realized they needed a consistent approach to change. They asked Emerson for help.

We quickly performed triage on their change portfolio of 230+ projects and then organized key stakeholders to develop an approach and a model for their new Change Center of Excellence (CoE). We guided the team to identify high-priority behaviors and build robust messaging. Key leaders, armed with a consistent story, deployed the new CoE. We then built a change toolkit for their new change agents.

The first test of the model: the change team applied its new approach and tools to their Oracle CPQ implementation.

A large child care and early childhood education company had 1,500 centers using an array of client management systems. They wanted to roll out a single company-wide solution to bring their centers up-to-date, recoup lost revenue, all without disrupting operations.

From the beginning, the initiative faced challenges: they had been trying to replace IT systems over ten years and lacked internal change capability. The company had a very loyal and caring culture and we needed to use that energy to help them succeed.

Emerson brought methodology and metrics to the plan. We offered an operating model, readiness assessment and metrics, a define phase for learning, and a learning model and deliverables. We helped build capability in their teams and left a transition toolkit to reinforce process and measure progress.

After an online realty company was acquired, their new executive leadership team identified three challenges: shared priorities, strategic alignment and consistent execution. They asked Emerson to help them create behaviors to meet those three challenges.

We led the CEO, CFO and VP of HR and their teams through transformation working sessions. The sessions yielded a consistent message, an understanding of their internal landscape, and actionable plans to create momentum and change. We also helped the company build a new product development process, PMO, and cascading goal-setting processes.

With our help, the executive team identified their own measures of success: 1) Employees can describe their top three priorities, 2) employees can describe the company strategy, 3) time-to-decision is reduced, 4) Products, Engineering and Sales work toward a common strategy, and 5) the company meets its financial and performance targets.

The world’s fourth largest retailer was ready to make its U.S. grocery debut. Emerson designed, developed and implemented training for the launch. Their new store concept required a service model built around “customer assistants.”

To support that, we developed strategically driven training for both new hires and existing employees. They learned about the parent company, the genesis of the retail concept, and their role in living the company mission: a fresh and easy place to shop, a good neighbor, and a great place to work.

The program used innovative techniques to train employees to perform their jobs seamlessly within the new service environment. With the help of Emerson, staff were ready to enter the U.S. market.

One of the largest privately-held clothing companies in the world knew it was time to transform their regionally focused plans into one company-wide strategy. They hired Emerson to help.

We created a four-point change strategy that engaged regional leaders and helped them build transformation capabilities to support the new overall strategy.

We also created the communication plan that helped streamline the transition for this iconic company.

A large state government organization was struggling to support its internal clients because the team had few change management skills and tools. They asked Emerson for a creative solution.

We started with their custom change model (based on John Kotter’s Eight-Step approach) and developed an instructor-led program, incorporating our best practices in change management.

To fit their needs, the course modules were delivered “just in time” – team members learn a concept or tool when they are ready to use it. Knowledge is tested through case studies, where the project team critiques the learner’s outputs so that every step is a learning opportunity.

A major consumer products player — the parent company to 14 well-known household brands — needed help defining “world-class excellence” and plotting a course to get there.

We were thrilled to help.

Emerson created an HR Excellent Blueprint that described the future state on a five-point scale, then created a change assessment for their short, mid, and long-term capability goals.

Our partnership with this client has them well on their way to new levels of excellence.