The Problem

A multi-billion dollar international consumer products company faced rising costs, slow responsiveness to business change, and a sluggish decision-making process within its information technology (IT) organization. The IT function had lost the confidence of the company’s business units–who no longer viewed IT as an integral part of the company’s success.

The Engagement

Brand Velocity (BV) was engaged to develop and execute a plan to streamline the IT organization, increase the department’s ability to react quickly, and accelerate the IT and business leadership decision-making process. Using BV’s proven knowledge-work productivity principles, BV worked with key leaders to develop a clear master plan for the IT organization, linked to an accelerated work/investment decision-making process. The overall governance process for all IT initiatives was then improved so that the work with the greatest business value was rapidly delivered. Then, a more productive organizational structure was designed and implemented, resulting in 500 fewer positions. A well designed selection process was then implemented to ensure that the best resources were retained.

The Result

The engagement resulted in a significant reduction (>25%) in the department’s overall headcount and cost, when the department was reorganized to more rapidly respond to business priorities. The client’s IT operating expenses were reduced by $15MM on an annualized basis while the capabilities of the organization were expanded and improved. This was achieved primarily through the elimination of redundant and overlapping positions and by investing in more skilled resources.

The decision-making process was rationalized to ensure timely, fact-based decisions were made by the key leaders in the organization. The decision-making process, which had relied on hundreds of middle managers and executives, was redesigned around a few critical executives–greatly accelerating the process by moving from a month-long decision-making process involving hundreds of hours of management time to one completed within 48 hours with just a few hours of executive time required.

Taking advantage of the BV accelerated approach, the department became a strong contributor to the overall organization and the satisfaction of the IT team members also rose sharply. The client received a one-year return of approximately 6x on its investment in BV’s services.