Growth by acquisition had left the group with inconsistent authority across markets and a habit of escalating anything ambiguous. The work established a single decision-rights framework and a short escalation test that local leaders could apply without a central ruling.

The situation

Thirty markets had joined the group carrying their own conventions about who could commit what. Where authority was unclear, the safe move was to escalate, so almost everything did. The group executive had become the arbiter of decisions it had no local context for, and market leaders had quietly stopped believing their own mandates.

How the work ran

Nine months. The framework was deliberately short: one authority table, one escalation test, and a rule that anything not listed sits with the market. The test was drafted, then run against sixty historic escalations to see how many it would have absorbed. Roughly two thirds. Executive committee design was adjusted last, once the flow of decisions was clear. Related thinking appears across the advisory writing.

What changed

Decision cycle time fell 40%, escalations to the group executive dropped 62% year on year, and market leader confidence in their own authority rose from 41% to 78%, the measure that mattered most, since the framework only works if it is believed. Discuss a similar mandate.