De samenhang op zingevingsniveau van Tony’s Chocolonely

Door: Roel Wagter

In mijn rol als copromotor en gastdocent aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen begeleid ik via de Faculteit der Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Informatica jaarlijks een aantal studenten. Na mijn college over ‘sturen op samenhang’ ontvangen de betreffende studenten de opdracht om naar keuze een jaarverslag van een onderneming te downloaden en de samenhang op zingevingsniveau van deze onderneming te onderzoeken en te waarderen. Voor alle duidelijkheid, het betreft hier tussentijdse studieresultaten in de vorm van een op te leveren paper. De komende tijd zal ik, overigens met toestemming van de betreffende studenten en de universiteit, een aantal van deze papers publiceren. Dit doe ik in de hoop opdat velen deze exercitie zullen navolgen. Immers een goed niveau van samenhang is randvoorwaardelijk voor een hoog reactievermogen, hoge aanpasbaarheid en het bereiken van de beoogde performance. En het sturen op samenhang begint met het sturen op samenhang op zingevingsniveau. Te weten de samenhang tussen de missie, visie, kernwaarden, doelen en strategie. Voor een ieder die meer wil weten over ‘sturen op samenhang’ zie ons laatstelijk gepubliceerde boek.

De onderzoeksopdracht

De onderzoeksopdracht zoals omschreven in de inleiding heeft bij student Hylke de Zee er toe geleid de samenhang op zingevingsniveau van Tony’s Chocolonely te onderzoeken. In deze blog geef ik onderstaand alleen het abstract en de intro van zijn paper weer en verwijs graag naar de versie van het volledige paper.

Intro van: Enterprise coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely; A quantitative assessment of the coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely at the level of purpose by means of the General Enterprise Architecting C-index., Hylke de Zee (2020)

Abstract

This paper assesses the coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely. Following the Enterprise Coherence Framework of Wagter (2013) the coherence at the level of purpose is made explicit by assessing the coherence and quality of relation between the mission, vision, core values, goals, and strategy of Tony’s Chocolonely. To do so and to quantify the result, the General Enterprise Architecting C-index of Bekel & Wagter (2020) is applied to information available through the annual report and website of Tony’s Chocolonely. This analysis showed that the coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely can be quantified with the grade 8. The analysis also showed that it is highly recommended that Tony’ Chocolonely makes its vision explicit by means of vision statements and vision descriptions.

Introduction

Who doesn’t like a bite of chocolate? With a global chocolate market of around 130 billion dollars in 2019 and expectations of growth (Chocolate Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2020), it is fair to say that plenty of people do. The growing number of certified ‘fair’ chocolate is certainly a step in the right way, but problems of the cacao industry are far from solved. In Ivory Coast and Ghana alone approximately 30.000 people are victims of modern slavery (forced labor) (Walk free foundation, 2018). The system works in a way that allows the chocolate companies to buy cocoa from a big ‘pile’. Because of this they cannot around the pile, so they do not look at the circumstances in which the farmers that produce the cocoa work (Our mission, 2020). Even though certified cacao exists to give farmers a ‘fair’ price, they still do not look at the working conditions of the farmers. On top of this the price paid for certified cacao is still not enough to provide a livable income for cacao farmers (Tony’s Chocolonely annual FAIR report 18-19 EN, 2019). 

Tony’s Chocolonely is trying to fix this problem by eradicating all slavery in the cacao industry. Tony’s Chocolonely is a chocolate company that sells chocolate bars that are 100% slave free. Tony’s Chocolonely’s mission is “together we’ll make chocolate 100% slave free”.  With the money Tony’s Chocolonely makes by selling chocolate bars, and with the help of the allies, customers and partner sTony’s Chocolonely provides a liveable income for their cacao farmers, creates awareness for the issue of modern slavery, and reduces modern slavery in the cacao industry.

So far Tony’s Chocolonely is able to work together with 6.624 cacao farmers (Tony’s impact, 2020), paid $2.3 million in premiums to create a liveable income (Tony’s impact, 2020), and has saved around 260 children from modern slavery (Tony’s Chocolonely annual FAIR report 18-19 EN, 2019).

Tony’s Chocolonely, actually Tony’s Factory BV but generally regarded to as Tony’s Chocolonely, was founded in 2003 and first sold just 5000 chocolate bars to raise attention to the problem of modern slavery (How it all started, 2020). Since then the organization has grown and last year grew from 87 to 143 employees (Tony’s Chocolonely annual FAIR report 18-19 EN, 2019). In order to grow and to be successful organizations must maintain coherence. By applying General Enterprise Architecting (GEA) the enterprise coherence will be strengthen and its performance will be improved (Wagter, 2013). One aspect of the GEA is enterprise coherence. The enterprise coherence can be made explicit with the Enterprise Coherence Framework (ECF) (Wagter, 2013). The coherence can be quantified using the GEA C-index (Bekel & Wagter, 2013).

This paper aims to make the coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely explicit by quantitative measure. Due to practical limitations this paper limits its scope to the level of purpose of the ECF (Wagter, 2013). The following research question will be answered in this paper.

How coherent is Tony’s Chocolonely at the level of purpose of the Enterprise Coherence Framework by Wagter (2013), and what grade of the GEA C-index by Bekel & Wagter (2020) quantifies this coherence?

Making the coherence of Tony’s Chocolonely at the level of purpose explicit can give insights that help Tony’s Chocolonely to grow, which will support it in achieving its mission.