Brand Leadership Magazine  ·  Case 09 – EDB

Leading Change with
the Brand at the Centre

Interview with Henrik Back, (former) Division Manager Consulting

Many companies grow through acquisition. One strategy is to let the acquired companies operate under their original brands — but eventually the whole can become too fragmented and the overall identity unclear. At one and the same moment, the EDB Group decided to convert all its companies to EDB. Henrik Back led the rebranding from the former Guide to EDB.

More than 300 employees

More than 300 employees sit in expectant anticipation in one of the halls of the Swedish Exhibition Centre in Gothenburg. The murmur subsides and Henrik Back steps onto the stage, welcomes everyone and gives a brief introduction to the day's event and the major change the company is facing. The next time all employees walk into their workplace, the company will no longer be called Guide — it will be called EDB. Every business leader who has been through a similar change knows that the process demands confident and clear leadership if the outcome is to be a good one.

EDB is one of the Nordic region's largest IT companies, owned in part by Norwegian Telenor and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The business has largely been built through the acquisition of entrepreneurially driven companies across Scandinavia. Most of the acquired companies had previously operated under their original names, worked towards their own visions and lived by their own values. In short, each brand had held its own position in a fragmented market — as had Guide in Gothenburg.

– Guide had a very strong position in our customers' minds — everyone knew what we stood for and what we could deliver. We also had a very strong culture within Guide, and it is clear that the news that we were to be called EDB stirred up a degree of concern among our employees, says Henrik Back, who in his capacity as then-CEO of Guide had the task of carrying out and leading the change.

Brand equity made visible

Even though most employees in a company do not speak in terms of brand equity, the insight into just how much a brand's awareness and image means to the company's business becomes apparent when a change of this kind is imminent.

– It is actually a perfect moment to talk to everyone about brand, because interest is at its peak, explains Henrik Back. The senses are wide open and the questions become obvious: "How are our customers going to find us now that we have a different name? How is the market going to know we are just as good as before — now no one will know who we are or what we can do?"

The driving force behind the decision to rename all companies in the group was the increasing consolidation in the IT industry. Large companies require fewer and fewer consultancy firms to take on ever larger assignments. The majority of EDB's biggest competitors were simultaneously reviewing their business and brand strategies, so the pace was high and the issue was urgent. The strategic guidelines were drawn up by group management in Oslo, and the initiative was gathered under the rallying cry One Improved EDB. The goals were to create a more streamlined internal workflow, better coordination of marketing and sales activities, and to increase the visual presence of the EDB brand.

– The change was in many ways entirely natural, says Henrik Back. I remember one occasion when several of us CEOs from different companies within EDB jointly met with a potential client, and we all placed different business cards on the conference table at the start of the meeting. That certainly did not give the impression that we were well coordinated, he adds with a smile.

Implementation in several stages

The change process was well prepared and divided into several stages. Initially, 120 of EDB's most senior managers gathered at a conference where the overarching plan for EDB's rebranding process was presented. Group management went through the overall business strategy and the ambition to take a leading position in the Nordic region. By consolidating and clarifying the group's offering, EDB could credibly position itself as a partner that delivers a total solution. At the conference, EDB's new brand strategy was also presented, together with an upgraded logotype and visual identity. The approach was clear — branding's task was to support and clarify the business strategy, with growth firmly in its sights.

"By using the visual change as a metaphor for the business change, it was relatively straightforward to communicate what it was we wanted to achieve and why."

— Henrik Back, Division Manager Consulting, EDB

As with all change management, a strategy is no better than its execution. The attitude of the responsible local management towards the rebranding is entirely decisive for the outcome. The CEO who recognises the power of using the new brand strategy with the new visual identity as an engine and pedagogical guiding star in the change process, quickly discovers how symbols can be used to communicate and carry a larger message.

– By using the visual change as a metaphor for the business change, it was relatively straightforward to communicate what it was we wanted to achieve and why, explains Henrik Back. In concrete terms, it is about building the internal communication on the message: "Our old symbol represents our old way of working and our old offering — and to manifest our new offering and our new way of working, we have developed a new symbol. To link the visual change to a real change, an internal change will be required from each and every one of us, so that our customers and other target groups perceive us a little differently." We used this message consistently so that all employees would begin thinking in new ways, says Henrik Back.

The launch event

The next phase in the internal implementation work was to organise local events to launch the new strategy at all the companies within EDB. Here EDB centrally chose to hand responsibility to the local managers.

– The freedom we were given was positive because it meant we could tailor the approach entirely to our own conditions. Guide was, as I said, a strongly established brand both in the market and internally among our employees — so we felt we had to proceed carefully to ensure everyone would buy into the new strategy. Looking back now, I can only confirm that was the right thinking, summarises Henrik Back.

Before the event at the Swedish Exhibition Centre, the management team had worked together with the business-responsible managers to develop the working material that would later serve as the basis for the local implementation work.

– In reality the implementation began already at this stage, because all the managers had the opportunity to get to grips with the strategy in a concrete way. We went through the new vision, EDB's mission and values, and through the exercises we had the opportunity to discuss, in dialogue form, the consequences of the new strategy. In this way the managers were better equipped to answer questions from the rest of the employees.

Motivated employees

When Henrik Back stepped down from the stage after welcoming everyone, he sat down at a table and participated in the exercise alongside everyone else. A symbolic act that demonstrated that no one stands above the work that lay ahead. Every employee's contribution is equally valuable, and everyone has something to add to a change process when the image of a company is being transformed.

The exercise was carried out over four intensive hours, and the immediate result was an organisation that, in a focused setting, prepared itself to take on and contribute to the change. The results from the company's own follow-up show that a majority of employees felt the exercise had given them a very solid understanding of the new strategy, and that they felt well prepared and motivated to carry out the change.

About the company

*Following a merger between EDB, ErgoGroup and SYSteam, the group today operates under the name EVRY. EVRY is the Nordic region's second largest IT services company. Through 10,000 employees, EVRY delivers IT services daily from 50 cities across the Nordic region to approximately 14,000 customers in the public sector and private business. EVRY is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, with Posten Norge and Telenor as its largest owners.