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After a series of acquisitions, Maurice Levy, the Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, had created the fourth largest marketing and communications company in the world. His next major challenge was managing the firm's digital transformation. In December 2006, the company acquired Boston-based Digitas, a leading digital agency headed by David Kenny. After the initial merger, which included the unbundling of Digitas capabilities and the global expansion of its agency network, Publicis Groupe launched VivaKi, a new company-wide digital platform, to spearhead the firm's total transformation. But since the June 2008 launch, the global economy had taken a turn for the worse. Could Levy, Kenny, and other leaders change the holding company quickly and effectively enough to make the new model work?

Since the 1980's, Procter & Gamble had leveraged its purpose, values, and principles (PVP) to create a global company. When P&G faced difficult times in 2000, the new CEO, A.G. Lafley, leveraged the PVP to drive P&G's turnaround, integrate global operations, and guide decision-making in all facets of the business. But the Gillette acquisition posed a new challenge.

A.G. Lafley and P&G leaders decided to approach the Gillette integration differently from previous mergers. Using P&G's purpose, values, and principles (PVP) it treated the acquisition as a merger which sought to take the "best of both" from each company. In the integration's first phase, prior to the change of control, the strategy achieved successes while creating some unexpected challenges. How should the integration leaders address these challenges moving forward?

P&G had used its purpose, values, and principles (PVP) to prepare for the physical integration of Gillette prior to the change of control. The execution of these plans posed numerous challenges in global business units as well as in individual country organizations. While managers sought to maintain business momentum during the transition, corporate leaders were intent on continuing to use Gillette as a catalyst of change.

After arriving in 2001 as the first outsider Chairman and CEO in Gillette history, Jim Kilts had led a remarkable turnaround. But by late 2004 he had to make a difficult decision. To better position the 104-year-old, Boston-based company, he opted to sell it to Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble. How should Kilts lead the transition?

Members of IBM's fifth Integration and Values Team (IVT5) were close to finishing their deliberations. Convened by Sam Palmisano, Chairman and CEO, and sponsored by Jon Iwata, Senior VP of Corporate Communications and Marketing, and John E. Kelly III, Senior VP and Director of Research, the IVT5's focus was on "the global IBMer"-define and develop global leaders; make the "globally integrated enterprise" relevant to all employees through corporate citizenship initiatives reflective of the company's values; and help IBM compete globally by ensuring market access. The scope was all 170 countries in which IBM operated. As leaders who had risen to their positions as systems thinkers committed to innovation, the team knew it was necessary to stand back and look at the big picture-to see how IBM worked now and operate at its best in order to understand the gaps, dilemmas, and opportunities.

IBM's transformation into a globally integrated enterprise (GIE) began with a conviction about what should never change. Since its founding in 1911, the company operated under a set of principles articulated by founder Thomas Watson and became known for a strong culture and a commitment to fairness and social responsibility. As IBM entered its second century, it was appropriate to take a fresh look at its values while remaining unwavering in ethics, integrity, and-to use the twenty-first century word-the highest standards of corporate citizenship. All of this could be done with strategic use of IBM technology and innovation. Yet IBMers in a variety of businesses and geographies also wanted the company to do even more. Members of the fifth Integration and Values Team (IVT5) pondered this and other global citizenship possibilities, reviewing how people were developed and worked as the transition to the GIE was underway.

By 2007, there were many signs that the merger of Chohung and Shinhan banks to form the Shinhan Financial Group in 2003 had met its goals. Shinhan Financial Group's stock price had increased from $31 a share at its opening on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2003, soon after the merger had been announced, to $91 in April 2006 after the legal merger occurred. Employees were also exhibiting increasing identification with the new bank. Looking into the future, the financial group hopes to expand overseas. In addition to pursuing opportunities in regional Asian markets, European and former Soviet markets as well as the large Korean immigrant community in the United States provide valuable expansion possibilities. The successful Chohung merger was an important first step in Shinhan's plans to become a global player in the financial services industry.

Juliana Azevedo Schahin, a local marketing director for Procter & Gamble in Sao Paulo, had worked closely with Tarek Fahahat, a regional executive based in Caracas, to solve the growth and profitability problems of P&G Brazil. They did so through the creation of lower-cost versions of two premium products which reached BOP (bottom of the pyramid) consumers--an approach not considered then as a company strategy. The case follows Azevedo and Farahat through their steps in helping to conceive the change, sell it to senior management, and implement it. The true test comes when the subsidiary wants to extend the model to its third and largest category, laundry care, which had also struggled. But Azevedo did not oversee that business in Brazil, and Farahat worked in another category in Caracas. Her country colleagues go to her to learn more about the success of the first two products. Now the question is whether this is a one-time wonder or an innovation that should be diffused to other products and geographies.

Supplements with the (A) Case.

Large corporations have long been seen as lumbering, inflexible, bureaucratic - and clueless about global developments. But recently some multinationals seem to be transforming themselves: They're engaging employees, moving quickly, and introducing innovations that show true connection with the world. Harvard Business School's Kanter ventured with a research team inside a dozen global giants - including IBM, Procter & Gamble, Omron, CEMEX, Cisco, and Banco Real - to discover what has been driving the change. After conducting more than 350 interviews on five continents, she and her colleagues came away with a strong sense that we are witnessing the dawn of a new model of corporate power: The coordination of actions and decisions on the front lines now appears to stem from widely shared values and a sturdy platform of common processes and technology, not from top-down decrees. In particular, the values that engage the passions of far-flung workforces stress openness, inclusion, and making the world a better place. Through this shift in what might be called their guidance systems, the companies have become as creative and nimble as much smaller ones, even while taking on social and environmental challenges of a scale that only large enterprises could attempt. IBM, for instance, has created a nonprofit partnership, World Community Grid, through which any organization or individual can donate unused computing power to research projects and see what is being done with the donation in real time. IBM has gained an inspiring showcase for its new technology, helped business partners connect with the company in a positive way, and offered individuals all over the globe the chance to contribute to something big.

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