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Essay / Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy And Mather - 1352
BACKGROUNDCharlotte Beers became Ogilvy & Mather's first outside CEO after its acquisition by WPP Group Plc in 1991. According to her May 19 memo, Beers' goal was to "reinventing" the mega-agency, whose inertia and complacency had eroded its competitiveness since the 1980s. In fact, Beer's tenure at Ogilvy constituted a re-creation of the agency, redefining its goals, its processes, its personnel and its structure in response to the demands imposed by the evolution of the advertising industry. ANALYSIS The main problem Beers faced was initiating and implementing organizational change. at the basic level. She assumed leadership of Ogilvy at a time when the organization was hemorrhaging internally. The resignation of charismatic founder David Ogilvy as CEO in 1975 had created a leadership vacuum that none of the successive leaders had been able to fill. Additionally, the economic boom of the 1980s had created a false sense of security that made the company stagnant, unable to anticipate or respond to changes occurring in the advertising industry. More importantly, the absence of a strong leader caused the organization to move from a "single indivisible agency" to individually governed "fiefdoms." The company's shortcomings came to light in 1989-91 when it lost more than $100 million in advertising accounts from large companies that were fed up with Ogilvy's highly politicized organizational environment. NEED FOR CHANGE Since Ogilvy's vision at the time was limited to "just keep doing the same thing, only better", the re-creation of the company was necessitated by external factors and events. For example, the central office was unwilling to rein in spending by its autonomous field offices after the stock market crash of 1987, even though... middle of paper ...... understanding and commitment to the philosophy of brand management from lower-level employees In order to provide this support, Beers should better leverage the management team that developed Ogilvy's philosophy in the first place. CEO Beers and perhaps WCS Director O'Dea appear to be the only leaders promoting change. However, change should not be "imposed" on the regions from the central office, nor on management's subordinates. counterproductive and would lead to simple conformism. Instead, Beers should create and train senior executives and local managers as extensions of his leadership. By providing some degree of objective empowerment to achieve symbolic empowerment, local leaders could then help lower-level Ogilvy employees redefine their roles and responsibilities to promote the brand management strategy..