Hotel Chocolat

Context

Nine Feet Tall was engaged by Hotel Chocolat to bring clarity and control to an ambitious and growing portfolio of Manufacturing initiatives. Hotel Chocolat is delivering a wide range of projects spanning quality standards, regulatory compliance integrating with Mars post-acquisition and technology led innovation. As demand increased, Hotel Chocolat encountered the challenge of balancing an ambitious pipeline of projects with the resources available, alongside limited visibility of initiatives in progress and the governance in place to oversee them.

Having a single view of the portfolio was highlighted as a priority to ensure that projects could be prioritised and executives had a clear view of the complexity, dependencies and the impact on their teams. Additional consideration was needed as a result of the resent acquisition with Mars. There was a risk that existing internal capacity constraints could impact the pace of decision-making and the effective implementation of change. Nine Feet Tall was asked to provide structure, prioritisation and a clear view of the work required across their portfolio through to 2030.

Delivery

Nine Feet Tall worked closely with senior stakeholders across the Manufacturing function to design and deliver a governance structure and delivery roadmap. Through focused interviews with the ‘heads of’ across operations and central functions and facilitated workshops the team built a shared understanding of strategic priorities, current initiatives and delivery constraints. This enabled initiatives to be assessed in the context of overall strategy, resource demand and delivery timelines.

From this insight Nine Feet Tall created a prioritised view of the portfolio with defined ownership scope and milestones. Dependencies and delivery impacts were made visible and brought together in a roadmap that set out how priority initiatives would be delivered through to 2030. A light touch governance model was also designed providing clear oversight and decision making without adding unnecessary complexity.

Outcome

Nine Feet Tall delivered a single, agreed view of prioritised Manufacturing projects across seven business areas including manufacturing, product, finance, quality, procurement, health and safety and HR. The portfolio view now supports Board discussion and engagement with Mars by clearly demonstrating the scale and complexity of the change underway.
Hotel Chocolat now has improved visibility of portfolio dependencies and resource requirements, enabling more informed decision making and prioritisation. A ‘just enough’ governance structure is in place, giving appropriate oversight of portfolio health without adding unnecessary administrative burden and creating a stronger foundation for sustainable delivery through to 2030.