Organizational Network Analysis: Diagnosing Trust and Influence to De-Risk Transformation in a European FMCG Manufacturer
At a glance
Goal:
Diagnose why a multi-year transformation programme was landing unevenly across markets, by mapping how trust and influence actually flow through the organization rather than relying on the formal org chart, and identify where to focus investment to improve change velocity and organizational resilience.
Scope:
44 senior leaders assessed through a 360° leadership review, alongside a wider employee network survey of 1,506 people across the group’s markets, functions and levels.
Region:
Europe
Scale:
44 senior leaders assessed and 1,506 employees surveyed, across five countries; one diagnostic cycle (Q1 2026)
Delivery:
A three-lens diagnostic combining Organizational Network Analysis, 360° leadership assessment and structured coaching and interview data, synthesised into a single executive report over one diagnostic cycle, with validation sessions to test findings against on-the-ground context.
Outcomes:
A data-grounded view of where informal networks were strong and where they were fragile, a cohort of trusted leaders identified for activation, and a clearer evidence base for targeting transformation investment.
Sector:
Manufacturing / FMCG
Type:
Diagnostic
The Challenge:
This European FMCG manufacturer had grown through acquisition into a group of businesses, each carrying its own culture, systems and ways of working. A group-wide transformation programme was underway to centralise core functions, including IT, procurement, HR and finance, roll out new digital systems, and drive cost and process efficiency, all against a structurally declining category. A leadership transition, with a new CEO and a new CFO, was also underway just as the transformation reached its mid-point.
With restructuring, new systems and the integration of newly acquired businesses all running in parallel, leadership had no reliable way to tell whether transformation messages were genuinely landing with people or simply being formally acknowledged. Results looked uneven from market to market, but leadership lacked objective, network-level insight into where trust and informal influence actually sat.
Investment and management attention were finite, and the business was already operating in a challenging trading backdrop against a demanding transformation timeline. Without clarity on where change was genuinely taking root, rather than being announced, leadership risked misallocating scarce transformation resource, and risked the transformation stalling just as new leadership needed it to accelerate.
Our Solution:
Inspirational Group designed a structured organizational diagnostic that combined three data sources into a single executive report: an Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) mapping informal influence and trust across the business, a 360° leadership assessment measuring self and peer ratings against core leadership capabilities, and structured coaching and interview data. Findings were synthesised and presented back to the senior leadership team, with validation sessions to sense-check results against on-the-ground context.
Organizational Network Analysis
Mapped how trust and informal influence actually moved through the business, surfacing where networks were strong and where they were fragile, independent of formal reporting lines.
360° Leadership Assessment
Self and peer ratings benchmarked 44 senior leaders against core leadership capabilities, providing an objective read on capability alongside the network data.
Coaching and Interview Insight
Structured conversations added qualitative depth, testing emerging themes and surfacing context that the quantitative data alone could not explain.
Validation and Executive Reporting
Findings from all three lenses were synthesised into a single executive report and presented to the senior leadership team, with validation sessions to sense-check results against on-the-ground reality before conclusions were finalised.
Impact:
The diagnostic gave the senior leadership team a data-grounded view of where informal networks were strong and where they were fragile, directly informing where to focus change management and leadership development investment. It surfaced a cohort of highly-trusted “Confirmed” and “Hidden” leaders who could be activated to carry the transformation forward, including several people with no formal seniority but exceptionally high trust and informal influence that leadership had not previously identified as key to landing the transformation message. The diagnostic also identified an exceptional level of manager-level trust, providing a strong foundation on which to build change communication.
Key Results:
- A data-grounded view of where informal networks were strong versus fragile, informing where to focus change management and leadership development investment
- A cohort of highly-trusted “Confirmed” and “Hidden” leaders identified, ready to be activated to carry the transformation forward
- An exceptional level of manager-level trust identified, providing a foundation for change communication
- An evidence base for leadership to target transformation resource more precisely during a demanding, multi-country change programme
What This Means For You:
If your organization is running a multi-year transformation across markets with uneven results, this diagnostic shows how network-level insight can reveal where change is genuinely taking hold, and where it needs support.
This case study shows how Inspirational Group helps organizations make human performance measurable, even amid complex, multi-country change.
Leadership can see past the org chart to where trust and influence actually sit
Change and leadership development investment targeted at where it will have the most impact
Hidden pockets of influence identified and activated to carry transformation forward
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