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INSIGHT

Global ERP Strategy
and Roadmap

Breaking the consensus deadlock and delivering 10x ROI in three months

“You achieved in three months, what we could not do in 24. An incredible achievement."

Group COO

Background

A global media conglomerate with 10+ Operating Companies in over 50 markets is in the process of rolling out a global ERP Strategy spanning HR, Financial Management and Professional Services Automation. The strategy must resolve significant complexity, costs and inconsistencies resulting from a highly fragmented legacy estate, with a multiplicity of different technologies & vendors and varying levels of bespoke functionality. There are significant differences in the nature, scale and complexity of the various lines of business, a range of different regulatory and other local factors to consider, and resistance arising from an inconsistent understanding of the scope of the ERP strategy and the differences in functional coverage provided by the proposed strategic solutions.
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Konvergent’s Challenge

  • Establish consensus and clarity across the wider Group, and gain buy-in to the Global ERP Strategy among key decision-makers with diverse business needs.
  • Bring together current, fragmented ERP initiatives into a common, rationalised architecture supporting both Core and Differentiating business capabilities, globally.
  • Align the short-mid-term needs of the various businesses with a strategic ERP deployment that may take up to 5 years to fully roll out across the global organisation.

Approach

To establish consensus and clarity in such a decentralised business with many different perspectives, we needed to definitively bust assumptions and misunderstandings around the ERP strategy’s purpose, scope and timeline. We needed to make information about the strategy easy to access, highly relevant & personalised, and easy to comprehend.

We started by breaking the problem down into three fundamental questions and addressed each in turn:

  • What is ERP?
  • Who gets What, and Why?
  • Who gets What, and When?
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How - the Power of Visual Communication

Outcomes

Konvergent used its architecture and visual communications capabilities to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all things ERP strategy and roadmap, integrated into the client’s intranet. Through simple but high-quality visuals, using the language of Business Capabilities, and making the strategic context clear, over 12 weeks, Konvergent were able to help the client establish a broad understanding and consensus for a critical initiative that had been mired in complexity and misconception for over two yeas, and move forward with their global ERP program.

The portal has been maintained as a critical information resource for the wider business and is seen as a game-changer in such a complex organisation, enabling key stakeholders across the broader organisation to see their business area represented and understand the Why, What, How and When of the ERP strategy in the most precise and simplest terms.

The Value of Consensus

Why We Need to Demonstrate Value

In strategy and architecture, an often-neglected aspect is the Return on Investment (ROI). As financial professionals demand concrete figures when considering investments, more than a mere mention of process improvement or technology optimisation may be required. In their eyes, such endeavours represent costs, making it challenging to secure the necessary funding. Considering this, it is crucial to demonstrate ROI, regardless of how impressive a project’s visual outputs may be.  How did Konvergent do this on this project?

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“Value is a number, everything else is noise”

Consensus-building is a ubiquitous challenge for organisations and departments, with competing priorities often competing matters. Breaking the decision-making deadlock proved huge value to the client, but how do you calculate that?  The answer is that is never an exact science but one based a series of deductions.

 

It was estimated that at least 50 people were involved in this project in some capacity, from key decision-makers at the CxO level to project support staff and dedicated programme resources.  This does not include the cost of any external third parties outside of Konvergent.

 

At a conservative estimate, it was calculated that at least £2 million had been spent on salaries alone to achieve nothing other than deadlock.  By getting everyone on the same page and getting the long-elusive consensus, Konvergent delivered an ROI of at LEAST 7x – 10x the original investment.

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