When Charles Miller Smith, a former Unilever veteran of 31 years, was appointed as Chief Executive..

When Charles
Miller Smith, a former Unilever veteran of 31 years, was appointed as Chief
Executive of ICI in 1995, he was faced with the challenge of radically
transforming the company. After battling through the recession and the Seneca
de-merger, ICI found itself facing tough targets for a group-wide average
return on net assets (RONA) over the business cycle of 20 per cent. ‘Those were
clear targets and people were anxious to deliver’, says Miller Smith. ‘1995 was
good for the business; it made genuine progress and RONA sharply increased.
Clearly, as that happened, people became more
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When Charles
Miller Smith, a former Unilever veteran of 31 years, was appointed as Chief
Executive of ICI in 1995, he was faced with the challenge of radically
transforming the company. After battling through the recession and the Seneca
de-merger, ICI found itself facing tough targets for a group-wide average
return on net assets (RONA) over the business cycle of 20 per cent. ‘Those were
clear targets and people were anxious to deliver’, says Miller Smith. ‘1995 was
good for the business; it made genuine progress and RONA sharply increased.
Clearly, as that happened, people became more confident and there was a growing
sense of comfort and confidence about the future. You could feel that leeching
into the bloodstream of the business.’ But that, so far as Miller Smith is
concerned, only brought the new ICI to first base. Take RONA: ‘The 20 per cent
RONA target was straightforward, clear-cut, simple, well understood across the
business, sometimes too well understood, because everybody assumes that 20 per
cent is the reality for everyone, when you have to differentiate.’ Paints, for
instance, should make 30 per cent. Overall, he says: ‘We are still short of the
best in the industry, which is about 6 per cent above where we were last year.’
ICI’s RONA average in 1995 was 18 per cent. By the best, Miller Smith meant America’s
Du Pont.

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