Developing and Implementing a Client Optimal Business Model Across a Global Manufacturing Firm IAG’s client was a Fortune 1000 manufacturing firm which, like many in its field, needed to remove the silos of operation and get to a single, integrated business model across all its diverse interests. The company had tried a number of times to initiate this transformation, and had seen these initiatives fail to gain momentum – causing support for the initiative to wane. In addition, this organization was facing renewed challenges in its industry, and in the economy as a whole, as the sector came under intense pressure to cut costs and find new opportunities for efficiency. The plan to renew the organization through the creation of an optimal business model gained strength and the organization knew it needed to achieve the estimated $125 million in savings over 5 years that the plan forecast would be realized through implementation. IAG was engaged by the CEO of this company and promptly brought together a steering committee of the company’s leadership while working with the organization to clarify and document its vision of the optimal state and key objectives. Hundreds of subject experts were brought into intense requirements discovery meetings over a period of 6 months while the team assembled the components of the optimal model and clarified this to a level of detail that it could be readily implemented through technology. The client asked IAG to manage the requirements and implement business analysis and management technologies needed to generate test cases. Together, IAG and the executive team facilitated the client through defining its technology implementation roadmap, identifying specific projects which would deliver on the optimal model, and create RFPs which would enable the client to acquire the components necessary to be successful. IAG’s process was well accepted despite the intense pressure on the company during difficult economic times and is assisting the client to internalize the required capability to manage the requirements. The first key technology component of the optimal model was defined and implemented in a pilot mode only 6 months after starting the engagement, and will be in place with a mere 10% variance versus the original cost estimates. This company achieved a significant success in clearly articulating its harmonized model, getting consensus on this, and being able to roll this out seamlessly into technology acquisition activities. Despite the breadth of this implementation, the high degree of interdependence and the challenges in bringing stakeholders together, this company was able to get its detailed requirements defined for a mere 5% of its total forecast cost of acquisition.
The key difference brought by IAG was to challenge the company to realize that they were implementing technology not for the sake of implementing an ERP, but for the sake of implementing their optimal business model. By putting this business needs first, this client was able to better define its vision and the details needed to control this significant implementation.
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