Enterprise-wide Rebranding

CG manages massive rebranding initiative for a global financial services firm with aggressive timing and growth goals

Business Challenge: Turning over a new brand leaf

Despite its success as one of the world’s largest credit/finance companies, CG’s client suffered from brand clutter and a lack of customer loyalty to its products and services. The firm’s history as a captive finance provider put new commercial markets out of reach, and complaints from customers about the sales and service experience plagued its reputation. The brand momentum of the firm’s new (and differently named) banking business provided a unique opportunity for the client to redefine its market presence and get a fresh start in the post-credit-crisis environment. The time was right for a rapid, but thorough rebranding that would unite the firm under an exciting new brand and support the company’s aggressive growth goals for the coming years.

The CG Solution: Identify, plan, and manage to success

The client selected CG because it needed a partner who understood every corner of its business and could manage a high-profile, multi-faceted project in a tight timeline. After partnering with CG on an organizational design project, the client was impressed with CG’s knowledge of industry best practices and its ability to ramp up and integrate with its business quickly. CG also offered extensive experience in M&A integration, a discipline similar in nature and scope to a corporate rebranding. For a far-reaching initiative such as this, CG’s expertise and proven track record of large-scale program management would be critical. CG provided value to the client in three key areas:

1. CG’s seasoned team of financial services industry consultants led the complex planning and assessment phase of the project. CG drove the requirements gathering phase – working with internal stakeholders and outside partners – to identify what needed to change, how it needed to change, and how much time, money, and effort was required.
2. CG’s depth and experience with developing large-scale IT budgets, work plans, schedules and organizational charts helped the client obtain executive approval to move forward.
3. CG’s highly skilled program and project managers directed multiple workstreams from design through deployment, providing the client with reusable tools to improve the quality and consistency of future system releases.

Throughout the project lifecycle, CG worked across the client’s business, operations, and IT functions to actively manage all issues, risks, change controls, communications, status reporting, and work group meetings. GC’s key areas of involvement included:

Sales & Marketing: CG evaluated the rebranding’s impact on all customer touch points – particularly brochures, sales and servicing letters, legal agreements, and other hard copy materials – and created a brand transition plan that would be fast and relatively seamless for customers and sales team members. CG worked with the client to facilitate the external PR/communications plan rollout, design and execute the customer migration blueprint, and develop a Client Welcome Kit, which explained the rebranding initiative and its impact.

Web Channels: The client’s internal and external Web sites were a mishmash of brands, content, and functionality. Traffic and page views were low, but user complaints were many. Rebranding the sites would require much more than just a logo change. Providing customers with a positive, consistent Web experience presented a complex challenge requiring extensive redesign and involving various technologies, legal requirements, and international coordination. The CG team worked with business and technology leaders across all Web channels to identify and prioritize rebranding requirements. CG helped the client execute the plan and stage a coordinated rollout to its internal and external customers.

Corporate: Identifying and meeting corporate branding requirements called for a complex and coordinated effort across many critical corporate functions. In addition to managing sensitive legal issues, CG also planned and managed the rebranding of a wide scope of corporate functions and responsibilities, including:

• 20,000-plus e-mail address/telephony changes for all US associates
• HR systems, benefit cards, talent & learning (training modules and online delivery channel)
• Payroll
• Facility signage and security badges for 15 facilities in the US and Canada
• Employee intranet portal (500 Web pages)
• Treasury, corporate insurance, finance, and risk

Legal: CG assessed and addressed the legal implications of the corporate name change across internal functions, external customers, suppliers, and state agencies. CG also managed the legal name change of the firm and added the new name required for regulatory licensing. And as program manager, CG ensured new policies, procedures, and documentation conformed to the new brand vision.

Throughout the rebranding initiative, CG stepped in to provide the guidance, know-how, and resources the client needed to keep the project on track and ensure that business goals were met.

Results: A new brand built for growth

The rebranding initiative was deployed on time and on budget, enabling the client to quickly unify under a new and consistent brand, improve the customer experience, and capitalize on brand momentum to pursue growth opportunities. CG’s strong planning and program management capabilities were critical to guiding the initiative – which included more than 75 applications across 30-plus project workstreams and 200 individuals from the client’s business, IT, operations, and 3rd party service providers – to a successful end.

        Success Metrics:

• Rebranded the corporate functional areas at nearly 50% of the original cost estimates
• Met or exceeded delivery timelines for all original scope items
• Decreased ongoing operational support costs by 25% from the retiring and/or rationalization of client Web sites, applications, and infrastructure
• Created standard playbooks supporting faster on-boarding for new business
• Improved the overall effectiveness and customer experience for the client’s internal and external Web channels