Bussines cases

Oxygenating a Council to transform the business

Many of the big brands or organisations in Colombia and Latin America were born from family businesses, their traditions have passed from generation to generation and they have had to face different challenges, some of these challenges are presented within the same to remain competitive, in addition to generating innovation strategies in the provision of their services or in the creation of value around their brands and products.

There are times when, with the passage of time, boards of directors are occupied by the same people for a long time, which results in them no longer having a positive impact and it becomes necessary to take action to oxygenate their structure and why not professionalise them.

Talengo, as an expert firm in corporate governance issues, has accompanied companies in different sectors, including a multi-Latin company in the food sector, which came to the firm to face the challenges of growth in international markets that it had been presenting, in its trajectory understood that to embark on this great challenge it was necessary to seek the help of experts who could bring knowledge and experience within its Board of Directors, the main governing body.

Objetive

Advise the company to migrate from its traditional business to new markets, where the contribution started from the governance of the organisation, i.e. to support the business from the very professionalisation of its Board of Directors structure so that it would be able to accompany and leverage the business throughout its transformation process.

In this way, the task was to oxygenate the main governing body with external professionals from different disciplines, thus generating an evolutionary process that was nourished by a group of experts from different disciplines, which were in line with the needs required by the business in this process of expansion and transformation.

Project

Accompanying a family business with a long history in the food industry to migrate to a corporate organisation, allowing it to have a team of top-level professionals in management roles and on its Board of Directors, leveraging the entire business transformation process internally within the company and guiding the business on how to reach new markets.

Talengo analysed the business and separated it into two strands: the first based on building a main governance body with external professionals. The second, focused on consolidating interdisciplinary teams (second line) that were capable of creating the entire process of change and migration of the business model, integrating the vision of these professionals focused on strategic committees for very specific issues that would lead to board members and managers of the organisation being able to interact and work dynamically throughout the entire phase of organisational transformation and business change.

Results

Today the company achieved a focus primarily aligned towards the new business opportunities it was looking for, beyond its traditional core in the food industry.

With regard to the component of professionalising the board of directors, several specific profiles with great managerial experience, capacity to accompany family company environments and models, with knowledge in transformation processes, with experience in business expansion, company purchase and sale processes, knowledge in legal issues, production processes, commercial experience in developing new markets, among other fronts, which have made the Board of Directors a facilitator of the business, contributing in an articulated way thanks to the large group of knowledge that makes it up, were obtained.

In all this advice there was a clear guideline; where a Board of Directors existed for many years, the same management believed that it was time to oxygenate it because it had lost the impact to contribute and support the business and where the existence of this body was more aligned to a formalism and did not exercise a contributive and strategic role to contribute to the business, its spirit was lost and from there was born the need for the turnaround that was achieved.

Sector

Alimentos

Location

Colombia

Components and stages

Meeting to understand the needs of the company.
Creation of the strategy and the target market to be covered.
Search for specific profiles.
Approximation of the profiles (candidates) with the organisation for the first filter.
Interviews by competencies, assessment tests and evaluation.
Selection of professionals.

The closing is given with the accompaniment of the client in the final phase, which is the most delicate, so that they reach an agreement of incorporation, under a fairly similar standard. Then comes the on-boarding process, which is another process of accompanying the candidate so that they can be successfully incorporated, so that they know how to arrive and position themselves in a phase that lasts between 90 and 180 days.

Challenges

In general, Talengo has developed extensive experience in helping family businesses to consolidate the professionalisation of their corporate structure, where one of the most important challenges is to make them understand that the best thing for the organisation is to avoid having families running the business and – at the same time – having those people on the board of directors, as they could become judge and jury, which does not make much sense; it is vital to hire external members with specific knowledge who can nurture the organisation.