Business Process Re-Engineering Case Study
Three European telecommunications suppliers formed a joint venture offering pan-European managed services over a shared network. Each of the three suppliers had its own process for selling, contracting, ordering, delivering, servicing and billing, and they wished to adopt a combination of the best of these for the new company. They also needed systems and tolls to support the new processes.
The initial step was to define the base line processes in each of the three organisations. This involved completing steps 1 to 6 of the model outlined above.
This was a very large task, involving different countries and languages, so we had to keep the process definition at a relatively high level. Usually we define processes from level 1 (entire company level) to level 4 (detailed enough to enable work instruction to an individual staff member). In this case we agreed with our clients that we would restrict our definitions to levels 1 and 2.
Having defined the processes, we set about aligning the three different versions and identifying common, efficient elements and systems that could form part of the best of breed processes.
Next we evaluated a number of new process steps and used our experience and that of key client staff to identify where innovation was most required to improve things for the customer. These potential innovations were evaluated and the most cost-effective ones were implemented.
We found that this process of innovation and change management effectively blended the policies, commercial approaches and cultures of the three constituent companies to create a new identity and a better combined operating entity. Change management, organisational transformation and careful programme management therefore became essential aspects of this very successful project, which took three years to complete.
