Danone

A consumers-goods company, Danone must make a decision based on expanding the process for sharing knowledge which is implemented through a concept called the Networking Attitude. It is a way to share knowledge across groups in the geographically dispersed company. Franck Mougin, the vice president of human resources, and Benedikt Benenti, the organizational development director, are responsible for the Networking Attitude which enables employees to connect with each other and share good practices horizontally within the company. This program involved little cost and almost no budget. However, the two leaders want to expand this program and must make a decision on which path to take.

Options

Danone has identified three options:

1. Extend the concept to be deeper, wider, or richer

2. Impose more structure, evaluation, or rewards on the Networking attitude to make it more viable for the long term

3. Make no changes to the Networking attitude

Criteria

- Sustain long-term growth and innovation

- Strengthen managerial efforts and communication internally and externally

- Improve efficiency to solve key issues/priorities

Critique of Options

1. Extend the concept to be deeper, wider, or richer

Going deeper may benefit the organization, but specific considerations would be needed. For example, if borders are crossed between states/countries, language barriers would develop and alternative solutions would need to be made. For example, would employees need to learn new languages in order to go deeper in networking or would the company hire new employees fluent in more than one language?

If Danone goes wider by building bridges to partners, suppliers, customers, and consumers; it may benefit the customers, but will also benefit Danone’s competitors. The company should not focus on helping its competition because that will slow down its own progress and success. Going wider would in the long term be beneficial because the company...