Mention Cobham to the average person and if it means anything to them it will probably be a posh town in the commuter county of Surrey that is home to Chelsea Football Club's state-of-the-art training ground, complete with footballers' mansions and a high street full of boutiques, tanning salons and hairdressers for their oft photographed wives. But for those in business Cobham is synonymous with something altogether different. It is a global FTSE 100 company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced aerospace and defence systems for land, sea and air.
Celebrating its 75th birthday at the end of last year, the company is one of UK plc's best-kept secrets. With four divisions employing more than 12,000 people on five continents and customers and partners in more than 100 countries, Cobham has annual revenue of nearly £1.9 billion and reported turnover up 28% in 2009 and pre-tax profit up 21% to £295 million. It even paid a final dividend up 10% on 2008, delighting shareholders who found their portfolios stagnating in the depth of the recession.
Given such a British success story, why is Cobham not a name that trips off the tongue like other UK stalwarts, such as Marks and Spencer or Tesco? Well, first it plays in the publicity shy world of defence, an industry that remains inaccessible to many people who equate it with war. But as Pauline Howell, newly appointed VP talent and strategic staffing for Cobham, concedes, the main reason is that the company has until recently failed to get out there and tell people who it is and, more importantly, what great career opportunities it can offer employees.
There's an explanation for this: the company has a complicated history. It all began in 1934 when aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham, a Biggles-type character, founded an air-to-air refuelling company (an area in which Cobham is still a world leader today). Sir Alan arose to prominence flying potential commercial airline routes between the UK and India, Africa and Australia in the 1920s and introduced more than a million people to flying the following decade through his famous Cobham's Flying Circus travelling air exhibitions.
From this start Cobham grew both organically but particularly through acquisition until by 2006 it comprised 87 different business units spread across the world.
"It would best be described by people outside as a holding company back then," explains Howell. "We were successful at acquiring businesses that were successful in their own right but which had a variety of size, scalability and capability in terms of people."
Two years later Cobham restructured after a review, refocusing as a technology business with six divisions. Then in 2008 it further restructured to create four divisions: Avionics and Surveillance, which includes antennas, communications systems and navigation equipment; Defence Systems, which makes radar subsystems and intercoms for armoured vehicles; Mission Systems, which offers aircraft oxygen, cooling, and escape systems, air-to-air refuelling equipment and weapons carriage/release systems; and Aviation Services, which makes electronic warfare equipment and provides maintenance, modification, and training services for military aircraft and crews.
These divisions comprised individual business units, each with a different name and culture. What they had in common was an entrepreneurial approach and drive for excellence. What was needed was one brand and a unified structure that leveraged the businesses while maintaining the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit that had underpinned the company's growth.
"It was a phenomenal challenge," says Howell, who clearly relished it, having joined Cobham precisely because there was an opportunity to make an impact ("how often do you get the opportunity to shape what a company will look like in the future?" she asks).
"We had to look at all the technologies and decide how to go to market," she adds. "We had to look at how we could lead those organisations and make sure they were in a position for growth, and whether we had people in place that could position those companies appropriately."
If that were not enough there was the challenge of creating a single culture among people who already felt they were successful at what they were doing, so questioned why they needed to change.
"People identified passionately with their brand and believed their customers would only buy if their unit was still called the old company name. We had to show them that the market is a different place today and that we have to be ready to optimise that," says Howell.
A major communications programme was developed to ensure employees were engaged in the brand exercise from the start and that they understood the opportunities being under a single brand created. Work is now being undertaken on culture, which will be around the drive for excellence in both innovation and execution, as well as respect for opinion, reflected in Cobham's tagline: 'The most important thing we build is trust'.
Two years later and there is a new company structure, which must be one of the leanest of any FTSE 100 company (the company moved from the FTSE 350 in 2008). At the top table sits Cobham's CEO, Andy Stevens, who took over in January this year having been chief operating officer previously; executive vice president for HR, Martin Burgess (to whom Howell and VP Comps and Benefits James Rafferty report); the four divisional presidents; legal and compliance director and finance director. "It is a very narrow leadership team, which is there to enable, not to be a barrier. We don't want to overburden the structure and reporting in the business," Howell explains.
The 32 business units each have a site-based HR person reporting to the strategic business unit leader, with a dotted line into Howell. "We have had to encourage the businesses to see how they can work with HR and where HR sits in the business. Is it appropriate to have a bloated HR department? By working with the people in the business units you end up with better products," Howell believes.
Her success is best shown through the work she has done on talent. "With change comes a massive thirst for talent so we are driving programmes to support that pipeline and the business strategy as it evolves," she explains.
Talent is, of course, critical to any organisation but Cobham is in a sector that has long had skills shortages - engineering. Given this, raising the profile of the organisation is vital, as is defining what talent exists in the business, a particular challenge given its disparate nature.
On the former, the company is reviewing its careers website and looking for a recruitment process outsourcing partner. It has also invested in graduate recruitment and selected universities as partners, with the first crop of graduates now in jobs. "Four years ago Cobham didn't have a graduate programme. Three weeks ago we had 70 graduate apprenticeships here," says Howell proudly.
"It is not easy to join us," she concedes, with graduates needing a 2:1 minimum and doing a rolling assignment in a different part of the business to gain skills before going into their chosen field. The 70% of graduates that are engineers are likely to have their first placement in process or supply chain management. "It ensures they have an appreciation of the business drivers and our managers appreciate the pressures on engineering," explains Howell.
On internal talent, Cobham has worked with Kiddy and Heidrick & Struggles on senior development and executive development programmes supported by leadership competencies developed by the business (see www.hrmagazine.co.uk for more on this). The aspiration is to fill 60% of roles internally. This contrasts dramatically with two years ago, when for senior roles the practice was to look externally first.
Now this is under way, a more immediate challenge is the election. Whichever party wins this month there will be swingeing cuts in the public sector, not least defence. A Strategic Defence Review is imminent (expected by the autumn following February's Green Paper) and those much vaunted 'efficiency savings' and a problematic procurement culture at the Ministry of Defence mean real-term cuts of up to 25% are being mooted.
Cobham, however, has the advantage of playing in the commercial world as well, although this side has been harder hit during the recession. A strategic workforce plan will identify opportunities and Howell says the company is "fortunate in that we have forward-thinking people who understand where to deploy and focus energies".
"Homeland security is a growth area and there is a level of pride among employees that we are in the business of keeping people safe. The world's a different place from 30 years ago and we are well poised with excellent products. We have good market share and are able to grow."
With shadow defence secretary Liam Fox saying a Tory review will be "unsentimental and unemotional" and pledging to overhaul the MoD's procurement programming, describing it as "shambolic", and Labour and the Lib Dems also eyeing defence, Cobham's flexibility will be important. But it has proved to be agile in the past and a recent study by management consultancy Bain & Co identified Cobham as one of only 14 UK companies that are sustained value creators, based on measuring revenue, profit growth and return on capital from 1998 to 2008.
Given this, Howell is entitled to a moment of glory.
"If I reflect back, I think as a team we have been very successful," she says. "Initially people said it wouldn't work. Now everyone is saying it was absolutely the right thing to do."
Her challenge now is to deliver on all the strategy and keep the momentum going, particularly as the company's first employee survey identified that employees were keen for more visibility of the talent programme.
But when she does have time for a break there is nothing Howell likes better than treating herself to a purchase or two. "I saw the film, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and totally identified with it," she laughs. What a shame she is based in Marlow rather than the shopper-heaven town that shares her company name.
CV
2010: VP talent and strategic staffing, Cobham
2008 - 2010: VP of HR for Cobham Avionics and Surveillance
2005 - 2008: HRD for Cobham air refuelling
2002: Spent three years as consultant
1991 - 1998: Various HR roles in Lucas Automotive, then TRW Aeronautical
Systems culminating in director of HR
1976 - 1984: Various roles at West Midlands Regional Health Authority,
starting as trainee administrator and rising to personnel manager
