Tempting though it is to write about chocolate factories with squiggly steam trails flying from their chimneys, we’ve outgrown Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now. So, first some history on this fascinating company.
A philanthropic tradition
The Cadbury side of the company has a strong philanthropic tradition, influenced by its founder’s Quaker background. John Cadbury started selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate in Birmingham in 1824. Quakers’ church background and beliefs made it difficult for them to access universities during the 19th century(which in turn made entry into the professions impossible), and ruled out a military career. Quaker families channelled their energies into business and social reform instead. John Cadbury’s membership of the Temperance Society fits his decision to set up a business to provide people with palatable alternatives to alcohol.
In turn, his son George’s interests in housing reform explain his decision to move the growing business from Birmingham to the country, where conditions would be healthier for his workers. The new factory was called Bournville, a combination of the site’s name and the French word for town ‘ville’ – France being associated with the best chocolate. Bournville soon encompassed houses for key factory workers, and park land for their recreation. George went on to design an entire community for people of different backgrounds and occupations. He handed over the land and houses to the Bournville Village Trust on condition that all revenues be used to promote housing reform.
Even earlier, Jacob Schweppe in Geneva was manufacturing carbonated water, copying natural mineral waters, from 1783. He told the doctors of Geneva, who had encouraged him to perfect his drinking water, that any of their patients who might benefit from the mineral waters could have them without paying. The Cadbury and Schweppes companies came together in 1969 – two companies with strong philanthropic traditions – and have been expanding ever since.
Growth – by land and brand
A connection with the past is an issue for this company, then, and so is growth. In the UK, Cadbury Schweppes has a presence in London, Yorkshire, Wales and Bristol as well as its original Bournville home. It has also grown overseas, with significant operations in, for example, the US, Canada, Europe, Australasia, India and South Africa, and adapted to the very fundamental changes in those markets. Now it is the world’s third largest soft drinks company and fourth largest confectionery company. It employs 37,000 people worldwide, manufactures in 25 countries, sells in almost 200, sources globally. Regional and cultural sensitivity will be crucial.
Cadbury’s has also grown by acquisition – taking on brand names in the UK such as Trebor, Fry’s and Bassett, and overseas, such as Dr Pepper, Snapple, Motts and 7-Up from the USA. There is no longer any member of the Cadbury family involved in managing the company, so there is no personal link with its own tradition. Meanwhile each new company brings its own culture and traditions. So we would expect the company’s internal cohesion and identity to be an important factor.
Public perceptions will matter too: Cadbury Schweppes is a brand company – in the UK its name is synomymous with some of its products – Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, Cadbury’s Caramel for example – whilst others are powerful brands in their own right – Flake, Turkish Delight, Milk Tray, Roses, Liquorice Allsorts. So we would expect some national level engagement, to reflect this profile. Also some specific activities linked to each brand.
Finally, bearing in mind the largest target market for confectionery, we might expect a youth focus.
Not surprising, then, we find exactly these elements woven into the company’s modern community affairs approach. Brands have their own cause-related marketing campaigns – such as Yowie’s environmental education programme and Cadbury Land’s fundraising truck on behalf of CLIC.
Community spend at Cadbury’s
Beyond individual brand activities, last year Cadbury Schweppes invested over £1.7m in the community in the UK, making it a member of the PerCent Club. In the UK, most corporate giving is channelled through the Cadbury Schweppes Foundation, which makes grants to projects and partner organisations, or via the UK operating company CadburyTreborBassett.
Management
Community activities are led by Cadbury Schweppes’ external affairs director, Neil Makin, working closely with the company’s HR director. Neil is supported by the group community and public affairs manager, Alex Cole. Both are based in London, but in frequent contact with sites across the country, especially Bournville where Kate van der Plank, CadburyTreborBassett’s community affairs manager is based. Neil has an HR background, and worked for the UK operation in Birmingham before moving to the group head office. Alex and Kate joined in 2000 with a remit to work together to develop employee involvement across the organisation.
In addition, the company’s CEO sits on and chairs the Cadbury Schweppes Foundation Board of Trustees, and the Chairman sponsors a global Award for Employee Community Involvement which recognises outstanding examples of community service.
The Corporate and Social Responsibility Board Committee, set up to implement recommendations from the Turnbull Committee on corporate governance, also has an interest in community activities – as its name suggests. Neil expects it to stimulate more rigorous programme management and measurement in future.
National flagship programme
Whilst health and welfare, and the environment, are traditionally important themes for the Foundation, the company divested itself of its function as a landlord for its workers back in the 1800’s, with George Cadbury’s creation of the Bournville Village Trust as a wholly separate, charitable entity. The modern company’s focus is increasingly upon education and employment, particularly Enterprise in Schools – chosen three years ago as the area where the company could make the most significant contribution, by tackling the whole conundrum of how to create self-reliant, enterprising people through the education system.
Enterprise in Schools is now Cadbury Schweppes’ flagship programme in the UK, run from its London headquarters, and supported by the involvement of its people across the UK. It aims to make school pupils more aware of the world of work, and how their school performance may affect their future success. It also develops the attitudes and skills needed for business and lifelong learning. It targets teachers as well as pupils, encouraging an ‘enterprise culture’. The company has picked two partners, The Prince’s Trust and Young Enterprise.
The Learning to Work for Yourself project, with the Prince’s Trust, uses the principles of enterprise and self-employment to reconnect disaffected teenagers with education. It promotes self-employment as an alternative career option, and the skills needed. It is aimed at educators – teachers, youth leaders, careers professionals and learning providers.
Meanwhile, Young Enterprise, is a national education charity that forges links between schools and industry. Its new Primary Programme uses its ‘Learning by Doing’ formula to promote citizenship and key skills in primary schools. Based on the US Junior Achievement scheme, it uses experiential learning projects to provide an understanding of the world of work, currently targeted at 5-year olds, 7-year olds and 10-year olds. More is planned for 2002.
As well as being a national programme for a brand with a national identity, Enterprise in Schools provides an overarching theme for the company’s engagement drawing together a range of initiatives at both regional and local levels.
Regional
A national flagship project is one of three planks used by Neil to describe the company’s approach. The other two are a regional focus and employee involvement.
The need for a regional focus grew with the company’s integration of its two UK business units – Cadbury Ltd and TreborBassett – into a new single operation. Each had strong community involvement traditions of their own, but the effect of merging them under a new generation of young managers was to risk losing their community heritages, and with it, their identities. Neil was keen to use his experience of the strong Cadbury community culture to reinvigorate activity in Yorkshire and London. Under Alex and Kate’s direction, a ‘northern forum’ has been formed to allow sites in Sheffield, Chesterfield, Wakefield, and East Pontefract to share experience. The forum gained its own ‘pot’ of money, in which the Cadbury Schweppes Foundation also retains an interest.
On a regional level, the company now supports five Education Action Zones, backed up by a range of curriculum-based materials and a web-based resource for schools (cadburylearningzone.co.uk). Below this is a range of what the company calls ‘local connections’ – links between business units and schools, as pioneered at Bournville.
Bournville, with its historic culture of doing the best you can for your workers and the wider community, is still generating ideas which can be replicated elsewhere. Neil believes that getting managers from the company’s diverse constituents – Cadbury’s, Trebor and Bassett – working together on programmes across units and across regions has been one of the biggest single contributors to good staff working relationships. Community affairs has been the ‘glue’ to set the seal on the firm’s integration – relevant in today’s industry consolidation.
Employee involvement
How do you maintain momentum and encourage fresh ideas? By creating a culture where the way everyone behaves counts. The last major area of focus in Cadbury’s strategy is encouraging active employee involvement. Alex and Kate have developed a network of community champions – a link employee based at each location. The champion’s role is to co-ordinate their community programme in consultation with local stakeholders, and help identify and reward other individuals to encourage their colleagues community efforts. The network meets regularly to share best practice. Alex and Kate regard getting every site active and enthused as the company’s biggest achievement to date.
International
Cadbury’ Schweppes’ corporate centre in London currently provides seedcorn funding for country-based initiatives around the world at the request of local country managers. Alex foresees bigger demand in the future, and has been surveying Cadbury’s international activities. Community affairs in some of the poorest countries in the world, including those where the company has no operations as such, but which form part of its supply chain, is likely to play a key part in a review of Cadbury’s supply chains, underway since the Spring.
Cadbury Schweppes publishes a community brochure, ‘Creating Value in the Community’. The next is due Spring 2002 as part of a more comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility Report.
Achievements and challenges
Looking ahead, Kate and Alex see their role as providing tools and ideas to help each site develop its community involvement even further, and in sharing these with the other business units around the globe. They hope Bournville, in particular, will continue to be a valuable source of experience in this, both in the UK and beyond. As the effective guardian of the original Cadbury vision and inspiration, the UK has the potential to act as a centre of excellence within the modern company. One hopes they will manage to capitalise on this, and share the best of what Cadbury has to offer to the global culture being created out of so many other brands.
Other challenges include applying management and measurement disciplines to programmes at every level – they are already working with the London Benchmarking Group to develop this. Also, continuing to create an ‘enabling environment’ for volunteering at all levels in the company. Key to this is to keep stressing the business benefits to the upcoming generation of younger managers – ensuring they recognise that the best of the old values can be relevant to today’s strategic business setting.
Neil Makin, Cadbury’s external affairs director, first joined the company in1988 as personnel director, having held a similar position at Kelloggs. Prior to that he had a range of responsibilities at Pilkington Glass, spanning industrial relations, management development, pensions, employee communications and HR management.
At Cadbury he has directed the Cadbury Means Quality total quality management programme. In his current, group-wide role of external affairs director, held since March 1997, he directs the Cadbury Schweppes Foundation, the Group’s governmental affairs programme in Brussels, Westminster and Whitehall, and co-ordinates relations with trade associations and other industry-wide bodies. CSR is a key part of his role – he now chairs the group’s human rights and ethical trading group.
Beyond Cadbury, he is chair of Birmingham Careers and Education Business Partnership, a board member of the Adult Learning Inspectorate, and of One London. He is also a National Council member for Young Enterprise. He is a fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development, and of the Royal Society of Arts, and is involved in a range of other industry, education and community support activities.
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