The brief
SBM Offshore, a global leader in the energy sector, partnered with CMC to deliver a business-critical transformation programme spanning two years and impacting around 10,000 employees worldwide.
The programme brought together 20 major projects across core business areas including Finance, Procurement, HR, Engineering, Construction and IT, with the overarching ambition to re-engineer business processes, improve compliance and enable a more integrated way of working across a highly dispersed global organisation.
The scale and ambition of the programme created significant complexity. SBM’s workforce operated across five continents encompassing multiple regions, cultures and environments. Workplaces varied from corporate offices to shipyards, shore bases and offshore environments, where connectivity, access to information and ways of working varied significantly. Existing processes and systems were fragmented, leading to inefficiencies, inconsistent practices and low levels of compliance. At the same time, projects were being delivered at different speeds across different parts of the business, increasing the risk of disjointed change and reinforcing siloed behaviours.
Against this backdrop, SBM needed to align change across the organisation and embed new ways of working at pace, whilst ensuring that changes could be adopted just as effectively offshore as they were in an office-based environment. The programme also needed to strengthen internal capability, ensuring that change could be sustained long after our delivery was complete.
Our approach
CMC provided both strategic leadership and hands-on delivery, using the Prosci® change management methodology to underpin a structured, people-focused approach. We worked closely with the Programme Director to design the change strategy, assess organisational readiness and build a clear understanding of how the programme would impact different parts of the business over time. This included mapping the cumulative impact of change through a time-based heatmap, enabling the programme to proactively manage resistance, build advocacy and sequence delivery effectively.
At the heart of delivery, we set up and ran a dedicated Change Management Office (CMO) comprising CMC consultants and SBM personnel. This acted as the central coordination point for all change activity, aligning programme delivery with business readiness, and ensuring consistent, effective implementation across regions. To ensure change management became a standard part of programme delivery, we mapped change deliverables to SBM’s programme management approach, building change requirements into programme gateways. Embedding change into the programme governance arrangements ensured it was considered throughout the delivery lifecycle.
We analysed stakeholders, sponsors, audiences and change readiness across all 20 projects, developing tailored engagement strategies for each region. To ensure change landed effectively on the ground, we established and managed a global network of Transformation Leads acting as regional change agents. These senior representatives provided local insight, piloted new ways of working and acted as champions within their regions, helping to translate global change into meaningful, practical outcomes for employees.
To drive engagement at scale, we established a comprehensive global communications approach. This brought the programme to life through consistent messaging, leadership engagement and multi-channel communications including intranet content, town halls, global roadshows and video campaigns. Importantly, this was adapted to suit SBM’s offshore workforce, including the use of offline materials and alternative channels where connectivity was limited.
Crucially, we equipped leaders and managers to play an active role in change, delivering training, coaching and structured information cascades to ensure they could confidently support their teams. This included executive coaching and support to ensure senior sponsors were confident in their role as change leaders.
Alongside this, we invested in building long-term capability by training project managers, HR professionals and senior stakeholders in change management, and creating a bespoke change toolkit, embedding skills and frameworks that would endure beyond the programme.
A key element of the programme was the rollout of a new Global Enterprise Management System (GEMS), replacing fragmented legacy systems with a single, integrated platform for policies, processes and procedures. CMC designed and delivered the deployment approach, combining communications, training and feedback loops to support adoption at scale. By creating clear user journeys and continuously tracking engagement through system usage and feedback, we ensured that employees understood not just what was changing, but why it mattered.
The difference we made
The transformation programme delivered significant, measurable results, including a 5% annual efficiency saving – equivalent to a recurring $200m cost reduction – while operating in a challenging market environment.
Beyond these financial benefits, the programme fundamentally strengthened the organisation. SBM improved compliance and achieved more consistent ways of working across its global operations. The successful implementation of a single enterprise management system reduced duplication, improved visibility and enabled more efficient processes across the business.
By embedding networks, tools and a stronger change mindset across the organisation, SBM Offshore became not only more efficient and better equipped to manage future change independently, but more connected, resilient and competitive in a complex global energy market.
