Challenge

Konica Minolta was born from the 2003 merger of two respected global companies. In Australia, the newly-created company – with 400 staff at ten locations – faced an immediate challenge: to rapidly integrate two culturally different teams into a cohesive, dynamic unit.

Key to the integration strategy was engaging staff in developing the company’s new identity – right down to its ground rules, says Diana Borgmeyer, the company’s Manager of Corporate Governance and Risk.

Ms Borgmeyer began with a three-month project to engage staff in setting 30 corporate policies, ranging from pricing decisions to codes-of-conduct and travel expense budgets. Each policy, once adopted, was to be learned and adhered to by all staff.

The hurdle to be overcome was ensuring that staff complied with policy development and learning requirements. With limited human resources at her disposal, Ms Borgmeyer needed an automated process to monitor and help manage the process.

“Of the one or two platforms developed for the Australian marketplace, PolicyPoint emerged as the glove that exactly fitted our particular needs,” she says.

Solution

PolicyPoint provided a solution that

• Monitored the policy development process with a process akin to traffic lights. Nominated staff members were given a ‘Green Light’ email with the go-ahead to proceed, as well as relevant materials and deadlines for framing their allocated policy. Towards deadline, the platform issued ‘Orange Light’ reminders. Finally, ‘Red Light’ emails were issued to any staff who failed to meet their commitments, with notification to the project management team.
• Ensured all staff received and learned relevant policies. Once policies were adopted, PolicyPoint issued all relevant staff with the policies pertaining to their roles. Core policies were accompanied by an evaluation unit that needed to be completed by the staff member, to ensure they understood the policy. All ‘exceptions’ – those that did not read the policy or pass the evaluation – triggered an automatically alert to Ms Borgmeyer’s team, who were then able to follow up with the staff member concerned.
• Managed, monitored and scheduled the process automatically
• Was quickly implemented and is easily managed. The PolicyPoint platform was set up as a service within a fortnight from go-ahead date. The platform requires no additional IT support time, being easily managed by the Corporate and Risk Management team.
• Has an ongoing function. Konica Minolta continues to use the platform to ensure staff are notified of, and assessed on any new policies or updates relevant to their role.

Outcomes

“Three years after the merger and 12 months after engaging PolicyPoint, we are really seeing the benefits of achieving our cultural integration”, comments Ms Borgmeyer. “Having everyone on the same page, culturally, leads to more productivity in the back room, and a cohesive way of working – which is, ultimately, showing up in increasing sales and a larger market share.”

Client feedback

“PolicyPoint really is the glove that neatly fits our requirements. Our IT department loves it – it’s easy to use and there is no need for customisation. Its flexibility lets us design the process to our needs - for instance, most of our policy units can be completed in less than 15 minutes.

“Finally, PolicyPoint is value for money – as our CFO commented, PolicyPoint costs Konica Minolta much less than would one employee making a bad pricing decision because they didn’t understand our pricing policy.”

- Diana Borgmeyer, Manager, Corporate Governance and Risk, Konica Minolta Australia

About PolicyPoint

PolicyPoint Pty Ltd is an Australian-based developer of a business service that ensures comprehension of vital organisational policies and procedures. It is a proven, Web-based compliance education system, developed in conjunction with a major international services firm over four years in actual operating conditions.

PolicyPoint focuses in legal, financial, manufacturing and government, where its services are used extensively in leading organisations in Australia and New Zealand. PolicyPoint has staff in Sydney and Brisbane – contact us via www.policypoint.com.