Since August 2000, Openside has worked with internal strategy, sales and operations planning, supply chain and R&D project teams for this large Consumer Goods organisation. Their focus has included building a global problem-solving approach for teams working across different functions.

As well as creating bespoke management programmes and providing coaching, the majority of the skills development for our client has focused on analytical thinking and communicating data-driven insights to internal clients. As of 2025, Openside has trained and coached 954 participants in these key skills for industry – 649 of whom were from middle management roles, predominantly in Europe and the US.   

Challenge:

Ensuring a standard approach to problem-solving in internal strategy and project teams  

Our client’s objective was to target cost-saving and rationalisation in their operations, including: 

  • A production cost reduction of 20% within two years, across raw materials, packaging and manufacturing 
  • Efficiency and purchasing power improvement in the purchasing function
  • Global IT system implementation in all European factories, reducing application processing time within 8 months and processing costs by 22%  

Our Solution:

As part of the ‘Openside Approach’ to understand the context for the initiative, we identified critical skills and behaviours based on the firm’s skillset requirements and core behaviours to align with the client’s competency framework. We conducted firmwide analysis on performance management data, identifying strengths and weaknesses in a series of interviews across a spectrum of roles, before creating a bespoke curriculum with an agreed-upon set of competencies. Participants worked in groups on ‘live’ projects, using key analytical thinking skills to guard against scope creep, developing formal recommendations, and identifying potential implementation challenges. 

Outcome:

As the client sponsor was committed to the continuous reinforcement of the impact of the programme, regular meetings and reports ensured feedback was incorporated and rolled into refresher and coached application sessions to further embed the learning. We also co-created realistic scenarios for junior participants to further practise their learning. 

The Client saved €2 million over an 18-month period, stating that the key learnings from our programmes helped to provide a common language and a standard consultative process for project teams who were able to identify and resolve issues more efficiently and effectively.

What participants said about this programme:

“After completing the programme, I went back and updated my project brief using the process that we went through. It will be very beneficial in future projects.” 

“These tools will help to plan from the beginning and question if we can do things in a different way.”

“I am already thinking of ways to improve how I have been working so far in my projects, based on these new learnings”