Booker had a major, multi-billion dollar subsidiary which had recently been merged with a smaller but significant competitor. The cultures of the two companies were different, and differing views existed on how the combined business should be managed, many of the acquired company not appreciating Booker’s different style of working.

Cameron completed a Cogent study which objectively demonstrated the optimum policies to maximise both revenue and profitability of the combined business. Some of the recommendations validated Booker’s reasons for making the acquisition, but we also came up with a number of crucial new insights about the sources of profitable growth which turned the entire marketing operation of the company into a new and unexpected direction. Management from both the two merged businesses were able to align behind the logic of the new policies.

National Starch had been acquired by Unilever. Management were required by their new owners to follow a very different pattern of policies and procedures from those considered optimum pre-acquisition, and these was much internal resistance to these. Prime among these was the production of a regular strategic plan and a detailed annual commitment to the following year’s policies, in a company which had prided itself on its flexibility, rapidity of decision-making and ability to make swift changes of direction in response to market opportunities. Cameron was invited in by senior National Starch management to help embed the new strategic planning processes, and win management over to a realisation of their value, and that they could be adopted without loss of the core values seen to be key to previous success.

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