Digital Strategy
The Situation & Challenge
The CIO of a F500 global manufacturing company needed to align IT strategy across six global regions. The company's aimed to become a global manufacturing powerhouse, by doubling the size of the business within 10 years.
The international businesses were expected to increasingly power this growth plan in the long term. International business units are Canada, Mexico, LATAM, AEMEA, and India.
The Challenge
However, the company had historically underinvested in its non-US business units. This is especially true was IT. One pressing concern for business unit leaders was to accelerate the implementation of business technology roadmaps.
In response to this challenge, the company created a Shared Services Center to provide IT support across international business units. There was also work on an internal business capability assessment and IT roadmaps for International and Shared Services that is in-flight.
However, the company had also conducted its assessments without research on the external market and benchmarking against competitors. In addition, current initiatives exist as decentralized pockets of individual effort.
Lastly, coordination on vision and communication could also be improved. IT leaders in international business units often plan work in isolation. In addition, some supporting functions lack a single point of contact and standard procedures. For example, there was no single procurement or legal lead for international business units.
Our Solution
First, we developed a capability maturity model to select the highest priority capabilities. Beginning from a set of 28 business capabilities, we conducted surveys of business and IT leaders across all six regions. This allowed us to prioritize the top 8 most important business capabilities.
Next, we invited a global professional services firm, Accenture, to conduct an outside-in assessment of the company across those 8 capabilities. Using external market research, Accenture benchmarked the company's capabilities against three competitors, across all six regions.
Then, we ran a series of workshops to review each region’s roadmaps. Using the external market research as a starting point, we assessed how best to align the company's roadmap in each region.
This produced a 3-year integrated roadmap across all regions.
Project in Brief
Company:
Global Manufacturing Company
Client:
CIO
Problem Domain:
Digital Strategy
Results:
3-year integrated roadmap across six regions
Completed:
Q1 2022
