The client

Pandora designs, manufactures, and markets hand-finished jewellery made from high-quality materials at affordable prices. Its jewellery is sold in more than 100 countries through more than 6,700 points of sale, including around 2,700 concept stores. In 2020 alone, Pandora sold more than 85 million pieces of jewellery.

The challenge

Pandora had subscribed to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and for two and half years, they had rolled the system out to just their corporate HQ and Nordic countries, and it had not gone well.

The user experience was poor. Data was inaccurate, there was no integration with other systems, and manager and employee self-service had not been implemented.

Only 10% of the company had access to the system.

The new CHRO, Erik Schmidt, was concerned.

His diagnosis was that neither his team nor the implementation partner were doing a good job.

He put the planned, but much delayed, global roll out on hold and asked Change Associates to help.


What we did

We started with a diagnosis of the existing programme which included meeting the existing team and vendors, analysing the financials, and reviewing the plan. We reported back to the CHRO and CIO, and recommended a programme reset. We brought in experts in SuccessFactors, programme management, data cleansing and migration, process and change management, and created a new plan. This included a reconfiguration of SuccessFactors in readiness for a global roll out. We recommended we spend time preparing Pandora colleagues to be self-sufficient and ultimately take over ownership for the programme from Change Associates, potentially working with a new implementation partner. We then executed the plan.


The result

Pandora shifted from 10% to 60% roll out within eight months, including implementations in the Thailand manufacturing centre, the UK, US and two smaller countries. We sourced and arranged for a SuccessFactors Partner to complete the remaining 40% We set the foundations for Pandora to take on more SuccessFactors functionality, including recruiting and learning The project was delivered to budget and deadline.

“Change Associates accelerated our global SuccessFactors roll out programme more than fivefold. They showed us the way with a new implementation plan, and identified a reliable, cost-effective partner to help us complete the job. The support we received from Change Associates was professional, focused and first class.”

Erik Schmidt,

CHRO, The Pandora Group