Revitalizing an organization from the top down
Intro
The commercialization arm of a Fortune 500 insurance company needed to modernize their organization. Over the years, they had acquired more than 12 independent insurance solutions and today this division functioned like a loose coalition. It had been many years since they had experienced growth and change was needed now. The motivation was strong, and the business case was a winner: survival. To transform their entire organization would require a total overhaul of their operating model. Their next generation strategy focused on
Moving from the traditional insurance distributed model to a digitally enhanced sales model with the corresponding e-commerce capabilities to support
Upgrading marketing technology and how it was used to support a transition to a global model, supported by and analytics CoE and a team that would now work agile
Unifying core data and operations of the 12 providers via a new policy administration and servicing (PAS) system that would provide automation and scale
This was an ambitious transformation to say the least that required all hands on deck. The firm that began the project had created a plan that exceeded scope and was too wieldy. In struggling to execute, the transformation had fallen behind and leadership had lost the hearts and minds of the organization. Something needed to be done. The global Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of this commercialization arm came to Simpel and Associates for help creating and executing a plan that the entire organization could rally behind and truly own.
Although we usually start by understanding the organization as a system then moving on to the more granular levels, the sheer scale of this initiative indicated that we would need to devote even more time to the systems level if we wanted the change to take root at the individual level. The system is created from the top, so that’s where we focused this transformation. Our goal was to increase transparency, minimize waste, build relationships, especially between the C-suite, and help leadership clearly articulate their strategy and corresponding plans.
Solution
Successful change management begins with leadership. We partnered with the CSO and senior leaders to use the company’s values to create a leadership team dynamic that would galvanize the organization. This team met weekly to dig into risks and issues and solve problems in real time. By rolling up their sleeves, putting skin in the game and getting in the trenches with their people, they demonstrated commitment to their people, the program and the company’s core values. Together, we modeled effective teaming for the organization and got folks excited and mobilized for action.
Communication was critical to our change management plan. Although leadership would begin the work, it was ultimately the very people impacted most by the program that would be called on to make it a success. We partnered with leaders to foster a culture that was honest, caring and focused on substance over fluff. These values were reflected in our communications plan and coaching. Our goal was to empower the leadership team to interact with the organization in a manner that demonstrated purpose and direction.
There were multiple initiatives happening at once and it was critical that leadership knew how to react. Data and communications were the backbone of this transformation. Leadership used the data collected from our PMO efforts each week to facilitate execution. Their open and honest data-driven approach carried through to the broader team. From how weekly project management meetings were run to how we drove outcomes from organization or IT design sessions, data was used to guide the initiatives instead of personal criticisms.
The next challenge to address was the technology implementations. Now that the organization had identified clear needs, we were able to support them with our technical subject matter acumen in the vendor selection and implementation design process. We then worked with the affected stakeholders to redesign the transformation plan into one that optimized for new revenue generating sales channels. By the time the organization was ready to execute, we had developed such a relationship with leadership that we were trusted to lead the creation of the global project management office that would facilitate the tech implementations. Because of the work we had done using data to catalyze the transformation, the leadership team developed strategic partnerships with other functions such as HR, Finance and Technology that enabled them to learn and tweak their processes to models that had already worked in the broader company.
Results
The organization experienced what we call Transformation Arbitrage, which is getting outsized returns from a transformation investment. While we were still onsite, the program had already exceeded its revenue goal by over 10% and experienced over 110% ROI.
Over the course of 14 months, we helped this organization rechart their trajectory. A few months later, the CEO would tell us that our work ultimately helped the organization deliver the first quarter of growth after 10 years of decline. They generated millions in efficiency savings whilst simultaneously generating revenue growth and staying on budget. Our work with the day-to-day lead transformed them into the head of a global enterprise project management office that still exists and uses our processes and systems today. The marketing manager recruited to join our operating team now runs global data and analytics.
The client used our custom-built integrated system to drive the program to success. Together we reconciled more than 4 different work management systems to create a data visualization dashboard that generated 1st-of-its-kind data. With this success on their side, they successfully managed budget risk, moved over 100 projects through the organization’s IT process, and successfully stood up the MVP of the global enterprise project management office. All of this was accomplished in a way that enriched the work lives of the client’s people.
*Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and locales are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, entities, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
