NESTLE – COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Business Communication MGMT – 212

Submitted to: Dr. Anjum Fayyaz

Submitted by: Group 2

Date of Submission: May 6, 2020

Group members:

Agha Nawaz Ali Khan21110240

Humza Siddiqui21110058

Hassan Kamran21110105

Mahnoor Qasim21110185
Nestle – Communication Strategy 1

Table of Contents
Nestlé’s Communication Conundrums (Case Study)................................................................2

Communication Strategy............................................................................................................6

Current Communication Assessment.....................................................................................6

Vision.....................................................................................................................................6

Mission...................................................................................................................................7

Objectives...............................................................................................................................7

Stakeholders...........................................................................................................................7

Outline of Approach and Communication Plan Examples.....................................................9

Insights.................................................................................................................................12

Exhibits....................................................................................................................................14
Nestle – Communication Strategy 2

Nestlé’s Communication Conundrums (Case Study)

Introduction:

In May 2018, Ayesha Malik was welcomed into the Southern Region Sales Department of
Nestle. She joined as a Sales Operation Executive (SOE) and was on probation for a period of
six months. Her permanent status in the company was contingent on her performance. “It is
an exciting but challenging experience in terms of customer interaction and persuasion.” said
Ayesha. However, she was unaware of how it could go downhill in a matter of weeks. She
reported directly to Hameed Khan, Regional Sales Manager for Karachi, for her tasks and
responsibilities.

The six-month probation period was structured in a way to allow for constant feedback
through a form submitted on a bi-monthly basis by the RSM to the HR department. The
purpose of feedback was to aid employee development from day one of hiring. However, Mr.
Hameed ignored this exercise and contrary to Nestle’s goal of “on-the-job improvement”,
Ayesha made some glaring errors which she was not informed of. At the end of her probation
period, the line manager submitted only the final six-month evaluation report to the HR
department in which he gave poor performance remarks. Hence, HR warned Ayesha of losing
her opportunity to attain permanent employee status. Appalled by this remark, she replied, “I
was never informed about where I went wrong. Mr. Hameed never approached me with
feedback? How was I to take corrective measures then?” When HR found out about this
discrepancy in the feedback process, they offered Ayesha two more months on probation as a
makeup to prove herself.

Ayesha, however, discovered that her efforts for the past half year were in vain and was not
willing to go on probation further. Consequently, she resigned.

Background:

Nestlé is one of the world’s largest multinational organizations that deals with packaged food.
The company operates in over 86 countries around the world. Nestlé Pakistan – a subsidiary –
was established in 1988. Nestlé, at its core, promotes great diversity of workforce by
employing over 5000 employees in different cities of Pakistan. The company’s sales revenue
of over PKR 115,000 million in 2019 speaks for the magnitude of its successful operations.
Nestle – Communication Strategy 3

Nestlé gives its employees due credit for their dedication and hard work to help the company
grow. Hence, it considers its employees to be one of the pillars of its operations. To develop
and engage their most important asset – the employees – Nestlé has established extensive
communication SOPs and HR programs. However, for a company operating on this scale, the
most crucial thing other than communication channels is to ensure proper articulation of the
messages – either formal or informal.

Realizing the need of a communication channel, Nestlé has invested considerable amount of
resources. The company has uses internally connected telephones for urgent matters and in-
person onboarding sessions for disseminating any strategy, plan, or new rules. However, the
channel that constitutes majority of the communication is e-mail through their online portal.
From inter-departmental communication for arranging a meeting to providing relevant details
to its external distributors, e-mail has been the part and parcel of Nestlé’s internal and
external operations for almost two decades now.

Barriers to Communication Clarity:

The Sales Departments has had its ups and downs in various tasks due to communication
mishaps. Although, email and the ERP system have defined formal channels for reporting
and message delivery, occasional slip ups have been costly. Recently, a Regional Sales
Manager (RSM) made a critical forecasting error. As team-lead for the order forecasts of
Milkpak cream in Quetta, he was unaware that in lieu of a national holiday on May 1st,
orders will not be placed. This holiday was followed by a weekend which meant that order
placement would now not be possible for four days. The sales team suggested the RSM to
place orders for buffer stock beforehand to accommodate the demand over the seven-day gap
in this scenario. Unable to understand the message regarding the public holiday, the RSM did
not agree to his Sales team’s proposition and thought it was unnecessary. This error in
comprehension meant that Quetta’s distribution channels were starved of the usual weekly
truckload of Milkpak cream and the company lost its precious revenue. The earliest the stock
could arrive was after a week now.

Besides internal communication, sales has also been facing difficulty in communicating with
the sales force of distributors. Back in 2019, Quality Control mentioned that a batch of Nestlé
Cerelac needed to be held back due to issues revealed in lab testing. (Fig. 3) However, the
batch that was invoiced just had to be held back as a precaution for further testing to ensure
that no complaints surfaced when released in the market. Sales e-mailed the relevant
Nestle – Communication Strategy 4

personnel in Burque Corporation, Nestlé’s distributor. Burque was instructed to put the batch
on hold, which involved a two-pronged process: side-lining the batch physically from
inventory as well as updating the online portal. However, owing to misinterpretation of the e-
mail text, Burque did not update their ERP and just removed the batch physically.
Consequently, additional orders from the market were received and invoiced against the
faulty batch that should not have been sold at that moment. This happened without taking the
Nestlé’s sales department in loop.

Consequently, at the time of recall the inventory count did not match the batch numbers and
there was a shortage of stock to fulfill the additional orders taken for the faulty batch. Late
delivery to the product market would essentially mean double the current lead time. This was
because the new batches usually take two days to get delivered to the respective distribution
centers.

Way Forward:

Had the SOPs been clear and strictly implemented, the company would not have lost a
committed employee like Ayesha or sales revenue of potentially a million Rupees.

The overarching issue is a poor understanding of standard operating procedures and

discomfort faced in their daily application. Although the company took measures to tackle
each of the one-off incidents discussed, a long-term solution is needed to future incidents. A
communication framework complementary to the SOPs will accommodate the issue of
misinterpretation.

Discussion Questions:

1- What is the common theme among the three incidents described in the case?
2- Was HR’s offer to provide two more months of probation fair?
3- How should the feedback form be altered to ensure that line managers diligently fill
them out?
4- How would you convince a senior manager about an incorrect sales strategy/forecast?
5- In the scenario of holding the faulty batch, would diagonal communication have
worked? (Fig. 1)
6- Use the feedback framework from (Fig. 2) to revise communication between reporting
managers and sales operation executives
Nestle – Communication Strategy 5

Case Exhibits:

Figure 1

Figure 2
Nestle – Communication Strategy 6

< 3 nationwide 3-7 nationwide

complaints = complaints =
"Ignore Faults" "Minor Faults"

> 7 nationwide
complaints =
"Critical Issue" so
hold batch

Figure 3 - Number of complains and batch status

Communication Strategy

Current Communication Assessment

The Sales Department is currently functioning with a divide in the workforce. The past
problems have resulted due to poor comprehension of the Standard Operating Procedures
with regards to diagonal communication with quality control, feedback loops for new
executives and team consensus before key operational decisions. The department currently
functions with a Head of Sales, Regional Sales Managers, Managers and Assistant Managers
and finally Field and Office Executives (usually new recruits). This general structure is
working fine as it is and would not require amends. However, considering the ongoing
pandemic, communication has been difficult with field executives making few market visits
and office workers working from home.

Moreover, the department is a bit limited in terms of organizational connection, with most
interaction with Logistics and Marketing. E-mail is a fast channel but not one that can present
detail and interactive messages. Therefore, a system is needed to integrate the department
with the rest not just for task productivity but also greater employee engagement and
benefitting from the diversity that Nestle prides itself for.
Nestle – Communication Strategy 7

Sales is also currently functioning with a wide age bracket of employees with most
executives being fresh graduates with less than a year of experience and some Regional
Managers in their forties. There needs to be a realignment of how they operate as a team as
repeated errors are not acceptable as previously pointed out.

Vision

“To bridge gaps in Sales Department communication due to misinterpretation of

communication SOPS.”

This strategy has been formulated to overcome all sorts of communication breakdowns that
occur due to lack of clarity in communication within the Sales Department at Nestle. The
long-term goal is to ensure that all SOPs are well understood and followed so that all
communication and the resulting action is error-free and systematic.

Mission

The Sales Department needs to develop custom tactics to deal with its specific challenges and
that involves collaboration with the departments that it deals with as part of its operations and
HR. Sales needs to borrow expertise from Marketing for order forecast and also motivate and
train the executives for the new normal that is presented during the pandemic. Sales must be
as clinical in communication as they are in persuasion and customer attraction.

Objectives

Keeping the mission in mind the objectives are as follows:

1- Revise the feedback mechanism to capitalize on learning opportunities for the new
executives.
2- Develop a more open and accessible means of diagonal communication through the
ERP software currently in use
3- Conduct trainings and form formal bodies to inculcate values of cooperation and
collaboration among diverse Sales teams.
Nestle – Communication Strategy 8

Stakeholders

The stakeholders for each objective can be identified as follows. All these parties have a stake
in each objective which encompasses monetary benefit, self-fulfillment, skill building and
organizational success. These have been listed based on the above-mentioned objectives:

1- For feedback mechanism:

 Territory Sales Executives (Field workers)
 Sales Operation Executives (Office workers)
 Regional Sales Managers
 General Manager Sales
 Manager Sales (All divisions like Modern Trade and Retail)
 Assistant HR Manager
 Manager HR
 Head of Sales
 Head of HR

2- For cross-departmental communication:

 IT managers
 ERP specialists
 General Managers of Sales, Quality Control and Logistics
 Head of Sales
 Head of Logistics
 Head of Quality Control
 Assistant Managers Quality Control, Sales and Logistics
 Distributors and Vendors
 Procurement
 HR managers (Compensation and Payroll for incentives to successful teams)

3- For training and conducting workshops on team dynamics:

 Employee engagement managers
 Organization Climate Committee (More on that in Approach Outline)
 Nestle – Communication Strategy 9

 Head of HR
 Subject matter experts (usually Regional and General Managers of Sales)
 Sales and Marketing – Assistant Managers
 Sales Executives

For each objective, the parties that are to lead the strategy and be accountable for its
performance are as follows:

1- Regional Sales Managers and Manager HR (Evaluated by Head of Sales and HR

performance review)
2- ERP Specialists and General Manager Sales, Logistics and Quality Control
(Evaluated by Head of Sales, Logistics, Quality Control and HR Performance
Review)
3- Organization Climate Committee, Employee engagement managers, Sales and
Marketing Managers (Evaluated by head of HR

Outline of Approach and Communication Plan Examples

The following table addresses the root causes of communication breakdowns as mentioned
previously and presents a direction to avoid them in future:

Strategic Goals Outcomes Actions/Key Activities Internal Touchpoints

Develop a monitored  Improved  Revise feedback ERP module, forms,

and speedy feedback performance forms email, HR meetings,
mechanism for new  Achieve  Increase Daily Sales scrums,
Sales recruits permanent status frequency of Field co-workers,
early reporting from Cross-departmental
 Self-learning bi-monthly to mentees e.g. Regional
will reduce cost twice a month Logistics Manager
of initial  Quantifiable
 Nestle – Communication Strategy 10

trainings feedback forms

with target
achievement
scores
 Each te has two
cross-
departmental
feedback givers
Provide regular cross-  Better  Update ERP Cross-functional crisis
departmental coordination regularly management teams,
information updates  Less errors  Modality in ERP onboarding sessions,
from a Sales  Proactive and to generate ERP for supply chain
Department Dashboard confident request for batch visibility, Procurement,
employees hold Logistics, Dashboard

 More  Reroute Data Analysis

networking communications
opportunities for quickly through
low-level the dashboard
managers/new  The module will
recruits also act as a
 Reach out cross- social network
department peers for Sales
with the required
skills quickly
Inculcate practice of  Senior  Incentives on Onboarding sessions,
consensus building employees will project HR employee
among diverse age gel in well with completion for engagement wing,
group teams young staff entire team “OCC”, Videos and
 Exchange of  “HR Therapy” Training Curricula, ERP
experiential and which allows for and emails, Microsoft
technical interactive Teams, Task
learning session to bridge management software
 Up-to-date age gap with discussion forums,
forecasts for  Senior Onboarding sessions,
 Nestle – Communication Strategy 11

Sales employees RSM, Head of Sales

interface
regularly with
forecast data and
techniques
 Form an
Organization
Climate
Committee to
embody new
values

The following are examples of structured communication plans that will aid in implementing
the above-mentioned strategy:

Event Purpose Audience Date/Frequency Who’s Authority to

Responsible release
Follow up calls To Head of sales Once a week Quality control Head of sales
to the sales communicate department, department
department clear Sales manager head
about the instructions
batches to be and make sure
held or the sales
destructed department is
updated
Reminders to To avoid Distributor Every Monday Quality control Quality control
the logistics to further supervisor and head
remove faulty invoicing on Assistant Sales
batches held by the faulty batch Manager
the retailers
through digital
 Nestle – Communication Strategy 12

ERP requests
Tally the To make sure Logistics team Twice a week Salesmen Head of sales
retrieved order the online
receipts with systems are
the items in the timely updated
SAP system with the
and inventory
communicate received
discrepancies
Update on the To ensure HR manager Should be Reporting Operations
newly hired proper carried out Manager for Manager
employees evaluation of during a time of Executive
about their employees on six months with
performance as probation three intervals.
well as
attitude.
Meeting the To maintain New hired Every 3 months HRBP HR head
new employee, employee employees after hiring an
progress morale and employee
updates and prevent layoff
monitoring

Insights

The Sales department needs a mechanism to develop insights for its aching communication
issues. The STAR model can be used to give valuable feedback as a restorative process to
help employees get better over time. An example will be used to clarify its use for
accelerating initial employee growth:

Scenario 1

A new SOE is asked to develop a report on the set up and success of a kiosk in a local food
fest (taking place two months later). She forgets to mention acquisition of a specific budget
and sends a tentative plan to her boss. As a result, the boss would identify that there would be
loss in sales due to insufficient exposure. Her Boss, the Regional Sales Manager, will report
this in her bi-monthly performance evaluation per the SOPs and also sit down and talk about
the mistake to avoid repetition. In the SOE’s case, she would be made aware of her mistake
Nestle – Communication Strategy 13

and would be able to contact the marketing department and ask them to add their input
regarding the budget to the tentative plan.

However, it is possible that the RSM would not approve of the plan even after the budget
inclusion. The SOE and Marketing department may need to revise and therefore, an
alternative action suggested by the RSM (who is also the reporting manager for the SOE)
would be a joint meeting to devise a more attractive kiosk for better customer engagement.
(Figure 4)

Scenario 2

Later on, through her 6-month probation period, the SOE is asked to work in a team that
consists of representatives of different departments. Their objective is to conduct market
research and evaluate the competitiveness of Nestle’s Cereals. SOE only focuses her insights
related to the sales departments and emails her document to the team instead of attending the
meeting. Her boss notices this and reports it in her bi-monthly performance evaluation. He
then tells her to not only attend meetings but also value the critique form other team members
to help improve her insights. This time, no alternative action is needed as previous feedbacks
have taught her the positive outcome of involving other departments in her work. Therefore,
this results in the formulation of a well-rounded strategy.

The STAR model is really powerful as an iterative process and can fulfil the shoes of
repeated on-the-job trainings from the NCE (Nestle Centre of Excellence). (Figure 5)

The accumulated bi-monthly feedback reports as per the new suggested evaluation form
would then show growth within the work of the employee and help make a fair assessment of
whether to grant the employee full-time status or not. (Figure 6, 7 & 8).

Required Resources & Risks

The company has some of the necessary resources to carry out the planned activities,
however, management needs to optimize them for maximum utilization. There needs to be a
constant update of the ERP system to introduce forms and new procedures that will need
some investment. The necessary modality will require assistance from Oracle. Training of
individuals to use the updated systems needs to be carried out by the company’s IT experts.
The above-mentioned approaches and plans require free flow of information which meand
that employee empowerment and granting decision making power for key strategic and
operational decisions is necessary for the Sales Department. HR personnel would also have to
Nestle – Communication Strategy 14

realign themselves and encourage a collectivistic culture in the Sales department. Any further
requirement is to be figured out through the feedback mechanism and further changes can be
made if necessary.

Potential risk involves plans and activities not being carried out by those responsible due to
any micro/macro factor. Employees may show resistance to the diagonal communication in
the organization as they may feel that they are being bypassed by their assistants in the
hierarchical structure. Information overload from the Sales dashboard may also be a cause of
dissonance.

Another major risk identified is the pandemic situation worldwide which means that the
temporary arrangement made to cope up with the situation needs to be refined and
permanently embedded in the system for better work practices in the future.

However, the strategy acknowledges these risks as it envisions to make Sales more effective
in its various communication practices.

Exhibits

Figure 4 - Scenario 1
Nestle – Communication Strategy 15

Figure 5 - Scenario 2
Nestle – Communication Strategy 16

Figure 6 – old generic evaluation form

Nestle – Communication Strategy 17

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FORM - SOE

Employee name Department
Employee ID Line Manager
Position held Date of last evaluation

Evaluation

Characterstics Unsatisfactory (1) Satisfactory (2) Good (3) Excellent (4) Comments
Quality of work
Consistency in work
Communication
Team work
Takes initiatives
Punctuality
Compliance

KPIs Unsatisfactory (1) Satisfactory (2) Good (3) Excellent (4) Comments
Sales target achievement
Implementing field sales plan
Sales forecast
Sales Reports

Feedback from department colleague

Feedback from the line manager

Goals for next evaluation period

Feedback from the employee

Signatures
Employee Line Manager HR personnel

Figure 7 - Suggested customized evaluation form (SOE)

Nestle – Communication Strategy 18

Position: Sales Operations Executive

Job type: Full-time

Position Summary

Responsible for being a key point of contact for all Sales Operations related aspects
(e.g. Field Sales, Distributors, and Customers) within assigned geographical "Area/Territory" and deliver set objectives/targets.

A day in the life of Territory Sales Executive:

         Ensure achievement of agreed targets/KPIs for the assigned Territory

         Develop and Implement field Sales Plan for the assigned territory
         Effectively manage distributor/customers and their operations
         Responsible for the execution of the Channel Category plans at the Point of Purchase
         Responsible to provide quality and on-time information
         Ensure adherence to all Company principles and policies

What Will Make You Successful

         Bachelor’s degree in Sales/Marketing or business related field

         1-2 years of experience in sales, and over this period has successfully delivered on KPIs
         Capacity to understand all sales functions i.e. Channel & Category Sales Development (CCSD), Customer, Field sales

Figure 8 - Sample JD used for designing the form