The case examines the journey of Becton-Dickinson (BD) to become a more customer (or market) driven company.
The journey began in earnest in 2011 when Nabil Shabshab agreed to become Chief Marketing Officer. In the Fall of 2011, Shabshab completed a 120-day world tour of all businesses – not just the marketing group – but the overall organization. As a result of this tour, Shashab crafted a position paper that detailed the BD challenges and offered a roadmap for change.
After multiple conversations with the CEO, the position paper was disseminated to a group of 75 a BD leaders for a full-day discussion of the situations and recommendations. The first set of recommendations and associated work streams were launched soon after.
Among the various work streams, a key initiative was the pilot within the acute care market that required the integrated effort of multiple BD businesses. More broadly, the combination of various workstreams representing a “living” transformation roadmap. In addition to the pilot project, workreams were launched in marketing, sales and other domains.
Learning Objective
- Discuss how a firm increases the extent to which it is customer orientated.
- Understand that the role of the CMO – as the catalyst for change. Make sure that participants understand there are varying roles – and that the role definition is critical.
- Reflect on characteristics of the “first 120 days” on the job – what worked?
- Learn and discuss the features of a “good roadmap for change”.
