Running the Existing Enterprise While Building the Future Enterprise

ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION | GROWTH & SCALE

What happens when an enterprise is growing faster than the infrastructure supporting it, and the business cannot stop while you rebuild it?

That was the challenge facing a rapidly growing global, multi-entity enterprise expanding through both organic growth and acquisition. The organization needed to continue performing while creating the structure, systems and operating model required for what it was becoming.

The Situation

The enterprise consisted of 27 operating companies and approximately 3,000 employees. Many of those companies operated independently, with separate technology, functional teams, processes and administrative infrastructure. At the same time, the organization was continuing to acquire companies and add significant workforce and operational complexity.

Growth was happening faster than the infrastructure needed to support it.

What We Found

The issue was not one broken system or inefficient department. Fragmentation existed across the organization.

Different companies had developed their own ways of operating, creating duplicated capabilities, inconsistent processes, disconnected technology and limited enterprise visibility. Some businesses had infrastructure that others did not. Each acquisition introduced another set of systems, processes and organizational practices into an environment that was already changing.

Before determining what should be centralized, standardized or redesigned, the existing operating environment had to be understood. That required assessing how the individual companies operated, meeting with leadership and functional teams, evaluating systems and processes, and identifying duplication, gaps and operational risk.

The Approach

The transformation began by determining what truly needed to operate at the enterprise level and what should remain within the individual businesses.

A phased shared-services and Centers of Excellence operating model was developed to centralize the capabilities that benefited from enterprise scale while preserving the operational needs of the individual companies. Organizational structures were redesigned, enterprise technology was implemented and fragmented functions and processes began moving toward a more consistent operating framework.

Implementation had to be carefully sequenced. Existing operations still needed to perform, employees still needed support, and newly acquired companies had to be integrated while the broader enterprise infrastructure was still being built.

The work required managing the needs of the organization as it existed while making decisions based on what the enterprise would need as it continued to grow.

The Result

Over the course of the transformation, the organization grew from 27 to 42 operating entities and from approximately 3,000 employees to nearly 10,000.

The financial impact was significant. One area of administrative consolidation alone generated more than $3.1 million in first-year savings, with those savings continuing annually. That figure represented only one area of the broader transformation. It did not include additional savings created through organizational restructuring and workforce realignment, enterprise technology implementation and consolidation, elimination of duplicated functions and systems, or other operational efficiencies across the organization.

The organization also moved toward a shared-services and Centers of Excellence model with stronger enterprise infrastructure, greater consistency across functions and increased capacity to support continued growth and acquisition.

The Executive Insight

Rapid growth can make an organization larger without making it more scalable.

As companies grow through acquisition, expansion or increasing complexity, infrastructure that once worked can become a constraint. The answer is not to centralize everything. It is to understand where fragmentation is creating unnecessary cost, risk or complexity, determine what should operate at enterprise scale, and build that infrastructure without losing sight of the business that still has to perform.

Growth creates opportunity. The operating model determines whether the organization can sustain it.

Capabilities Involved

Enterprise Strategy | Operating Model & Organizational Design | Shared Services & Centers of Excellence | Operational Transformation | Technology Enablement | Workforce Strategy | Change Management