Change management at Mobil Oil Australia

To remain competitive many businesses in the 1990s have undertaken business process reengineering projects reorganising one or more parts of their operations. This paper results from a case study of the enterprise‐wide review of Mobil Oil Australia Limited to increase profitability and change the culture of the organisation. A radical (to the oil industry) business unit organisation structure was designed, populated and implemented. The project was an immediate financial success and reenergized the company. Income after tax was six times higher after the reorganisation than in the previous year, notwithstanding a continuing recession and the uncertainty caused by the restructuring. Return on capital employed increased from 2 percent to 7 percent. Lessons can be learnt from the way the project was initiated and developed, the deployment of the project management structure and improvement methodology, the approach to the implementation of the new structure and the findings of the post implementation review.