New Global Operating Model underpinned by customer service first mindset
The Situation
The Group CFO of one of the largest global sustainable paper and packaging companies in the world launched and sponsored a multi-year digital transformation programme, starting in 2021. The IT team had a federated design, with IT staff mostly dedicated to work on either individual sites, a cluster of sites, or to a dedicated country. The programme was set up to create a modern service-focused global IT organisation, capitalising on the existing team capital and the team’s vast industry-specific skills and experience, while improving internal customer experience and making service delivery more efficient and cost-effective.
The Task
A global transformation team of experienced practitioners was formed to deliver a new business case for the programme, to get it approved by the group CFO and to subsequently deliver the new operating model. Following successful business case development and approval, I was assigned to support the newly appointed global Director of Service Excellence. My role was to advise, consult and support the development of a new service vision, mission and subsequently to design and implement a new global Service Excellence organisation, to recruit the service team and to oversee the overall service transformation. In collaboration with the service transformation team that I helped to recruit, I was then tasked with the planning and implementation of a future-proof foundation for the new Service Organisation and the Service Operating Model.
The Action / Approach
Under my expert advice and guidance and with our sponsor’s leadership and support, the team took time to refine the definition of current service state through an extended discovery. We then worked out the desired target service model and future state, and derived a plan of transition steps to move to the target state service model. At the outset, I oversaw the creation of a solid service foundation, and a new global service organisation to facilitate close alignment to business strategy and plans. To prevent IT being consistently caught in the middle, the Service Director and I designed, interviewed and appointed teams to form two new robust business relationship management functions within the new global Service Organisation.
As a team, throughout the 3+ years of implementation, we kept true to our moto to nurture a culture of engaged people, delivery and achievement, while avoiding losing key staff, industry skills and knowledge. I helped up-skill and retrain the internal team on the application of ITSM best practice and to increase ITIL awareness and knowledge. The new simplified global organisational design reduced past role and grade complexities and created a simple, streamlined global view of the IT service team.
To get global buy-in from our service colleagues, my sponsor and I travelled to most major countries and sites to present the vision, to share our service story and to address any residual concerns and questions over the service transformation goals.
The Result
Throughout the years of transition, we achieved a well above industry standard of over 98% staff retention for “the brains” of the industry’s IT service teams of satisfied and engaged employees with increased productivity. The implementation of our new service organisation design, helped to mostly address the unclear and siloed IT strategy and misaligned goals across the IT organisation that at times conflicted with the transformation. We offered the extended global service team opportunities to apply for more diverse and interesting roles, supporting career advancement and progression, where ambition met with training and development “on the job”. This helped underpin a continuous stable IT service delivery with improved customer satisfaction and direct positive impact on internal and external customer satisfaction.
More specifically, the newly formed global business relationship and demand fulfilment service functions increased IT credibility, confidence and influence across the business, underpinned by a culture of involvement, empowerment and connection to the business. The immediate impact was an improved business agility and ability to rapidly respond to change and opportunity. Overall, this created clarity on the service operating model, the internal business ecosystem and improved the cross-functional multi-cultural teams collaboration. The “one team” culture and spirit that we created empowered knowledge exchange and enrichment, capitalising on continual service improvement across countries and regions.
The new global standard process and tools that we introduced addressed the previous lack of process at some sites and the technical integration strategy made the overall solution more efficient.
Focus In On: Responsible for Digital Business Transformation
New Areas of Value:
Increased credibility, confidence and influence across the business
More satisfied and engaged employees with increased retention and productivity
Creating a culture of involvement, empowerment and connection to the business
Improved business agility and ability to rapidly respond to change and opportunity
Digital transformation that drives, moves and resets the organisation’s vision
Direct positive impact on internal and external customer satisfaction
Improvements around:
Lack of process and technical integration strategy making the overall solution less efficient
Lack of agreement of transformation governance and stakeholder understanding leading to a fragmented approach
Lack of exec sponsorship and ownership
Lack of availability of the right people at the right time across both business and technology areas
Lack of clarity around existing operating model, internal business ecosystem or cross-functional teams
Conflict between perception and reality of digital skills, tools, methods and talent required and available
Lack of transformation, change and agility mindset in leadership
Unclear and siloed business strategy leading to misaligned goals across the organisation that conflict with transformation
