A major change in purchasing philosophy and working practices worldwide led to the formation of a new corporate purchasing team. Its role was to lead, influence, train, coach and advise purchasing professionals, purchasing agents and line managers in the business around the world. The company agreed clear financial savings to be met through improved purchasing activity and the corporate managers were seen as the keys to bringing this about. We carried out a 'culture mapping' exercise to determine the readiness of the current team of purchasing colleagues in the UK to cope with and implement effectively the proposed purchasing change strategies.

We worked with the Senior Vice-President and his team of direct and indirect reports to coach them in the personal and cross cultural skills necessary to coach, train and influence their colleagues around the world in the skills necessary to produce the savings. One-to-one coaching was chosen as the main learning method as the team was very busy with organising, presenting and training in the new approach. It was also recognised that the people were more likely to acquire lasting new skills and abilities if they were able to relate their development needs directly to the situations they faced with groups around the world. Workshops were also used in the process to establish team goals, standards and commitment to them.
We worked in Europe and North America as part of our support to the managers involved.

Key Achievements

These were:

• New managers equipped to launch a new role and series of challenging objectives for the business worldwide
• Individuals coached to enable them to develop the skills relevant to their needs
• Workshops in common need areas to improve team working, consultancy skills and presentation of recommendations
• Increased cross cultural awareness
• An ongoing relationship with SB where we continue to coach senior managers and their teams