If you want your company to be around in the future, you must study the changing economic, social, and regulatory conditions. What you’re selling today may be unwanted or unprofitable in the future. Evolve your business the way Indra Nooyi changed PepsiCo. Reward your people when they take steps in the right direction. Celebrate them when they achieve your sustainable goals. Then your company will be a leader in the future. E6 Solutions can help you transform your business.
How PepsiCo was transformed
Indra Nooyi was CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years. In her 2020 Harvard Business Review article Becoming a Better Corporate Citizen, she lays out how she changed the trajectory of the company. She used four important levers: hiring, delegation, communication, and recognition. She used these tools to overcome entrenched organizational behavior. Because PepsiCo was very successful, many of the employees resisted the changes.
“Success, more than failure, prevents a company’s transformation.”
Indra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCo
How Indra Nooyi identified a more sustainable future for PepsiCo
When she was promoted to CEO, Nooyi began to consider PepsiCo’s future. She asked a team of senior executives to identify trends that would have a negative impact on PepsiCo’s performance. These trends included the increased focus on healthy food, growing competition for water (a key ingredient in their manufacturing), and talent shortages. To communicate how PepsiCo must change to meet these challenges, she developed a program called Performance with Purpose. This program established four goals to make PepsiCo more sustainable: 1) superior financial returns, 2) healthier products, 3) reduced water usage, and 4) better support for women employees, in order to compete in a bigger pool of available talent.
Instituting Performance with Purpose
Many management tools were used to institutionalize Performance with Purpose. Channeling money into the right products and processes was key. But hiring and recognition were equally important. Once senior management helped her establish the new goals, she went looking for expertise to help PepsiCo accomplish those goals. To overcome the commitment to ‘we’ve always succeeded this way’ thinking, she singled out the employees who bucked the old system. She made sure they were publicly rewarded.
The Performance With Purpose program is explained in depth at the HBR article: Becoming a Better Corporate Citizen. To learn more about Indra Nooyi, check out her new autobiography, My Life in Full.