Restructuring P&G

To add to this, in April 2000, P&G announced an 18% decline in its net profit for January - March 2000 quarter. For the first time in the past eight years P&G was showing a decline in profits. In the late 1990s, P&G faced the problem of stagnant revenues and profitability (Refer Exhibit I). In order to accelerate growth, the erstwhile P&G's President and CEO, Durk Jager (Jager) officially launched the Organization 2005 program in July 1999. Organization 2005 was a six-year long organizational restructuring exercise which included the standardization of work processes to expedite growth, revamping the organizational culture in order to embrace change, reduction in hierarchies to enable faster decision-making, and retrenchment of employees to cut costs.

Analysts felt, and Jager himself admitted, that he did too many things in too short a time. This resulted in the decline of the company's revenues and profitability. After a brief stint of 17 months, Jager had to quit his post. In June 2000, Alan George Lafley (Lafley) took over as the new President & CEO of P&G. Under Lafley, P&G seemed to be on the right path. He was able to turn the company around through his excellent planning, execution and focus. With Lafley at the helm, P&G's financial performance improved significantly (Refer Exhibit II). The company's share price shot up by 58% to $92 by July 2003, as against a fall of 32% in S&P's 500 stock index. A former P&G executive, Gary Stibel said, "If anybody had any doubts about AG, they don't anymore. This is about as dramatic a turnaround as you will see."