IBM Business Consulting Services
IBM Strategy and Change Services —
Operations Strategy
Helping clients with critical
business issues
Clients look to Operations
Strategy for help with these
critical business issues:
• Cost efficiency and
performance improvement
• Focus on company’s core business
• Increasing shareholder value
• Continuous process improvement
• Maintaining competitive edge
• Improving customer service quality
Drawing on the strength of the full
Highlights
„ Helps clients address
critical business issues
„ Utilizes a proven approach to
Operations Strategy projects
„ Provides a breadth and
depth of offerings
„ Helps provide significant value
to a wide range of clients
strategy and change practice
Operations Strategy is one of the
four competencies within IBM’s larger
Strategy and Change team. The three
parallel competencies are Business
Strategy, Organization Change
Strategy and Technology Strategy.
Operations Strategy helps clients
resolve a variety of critical issues —
from strategy and planning to day-today operational improvements.
Our practitioners specialize in
identifying the capabilities that
are required to execute business
strategies and in defining how
operational models should be
configured, implemented, and
continuously improved. With deep
experience in operations strategy,
we provide clients with the support
needed to address the operational
issues that are crucial to success.
• Migration to new technology
• Product innovation management
• Merger synergy realization.
Our experience in successfully
formulating and implementing
operations strategies lies in three
main areas:
• Helping clients formulate
operations strategies that align
corporate and business strategy
with organization, technology and
process strategy
• Providing process expertise for
business process change, reengineering and operational
improvement, cost reduction, Six
Sigma, innovation management,
and post-merger integration
• Assisting clients with outsourcing
strategies and their execution,
including make/buy/partner
decision strategies, domestic and
global outsourcing, and creating
scalable operations.
Six Sigma/Lean Sigma:
• Strives to create both operational
excellence and a strategic change
in the culture of a corporation,
division or business unit. These
engagements are designed to
increase customer satisfaction
and drive out costs by helping
to improve processes linked
to company strategy and key
performance indicators. Six
Sigma also helps build an
enduring capability within the
organization that can create and
sustain competitive advantage
over the long term.
Design for Six Sigma:
• Extends Six Sigma principles to
the development of new products,
services, processes, and plants that
are designed to precisely meet
client current and future needs.
Utilizing a proven, consistent approach
All Operations Strategy engagements incorporate the following
key elements:
• Learning – Measures and adapts
the strategic management
process in realtime utilizing key
performance indicators.
• Mobilization – Utilizes preparation
and planning to help increase the
odds of successful and timely
project completion
Providing a full suite of offerings
Operations Strategy has a diverse
range of capabilities, including:
• Situation assessment – Establishes
a shared assessment of the current
and future situation with senior
client management
• Strategy development – Defines
strategic options and specifies
strategic initiatives which are
designed to create significant
value for the client
Rapid process change:
• A solution for rapidly identifying
and delivering a step change
in process, organizational and
systems performance. Rapid
process change focuses on
achieving tangible operating
improvement results in
an accelerated time frame.
• Implementation planning–
Determines critical success factors
and establishes change programs
to implement the strategic
initiatives
2
Strategic profit improvement:
• A framework designed to deliver
improved financial performance,
including: increasing revenues and
margin, reducing costs and assets,
strengthening infrastructure, and
positioning for future growth.
Service after the sale:
• Helps clients lower their customer
service costs and find new sources
of revenue and value-added
differentiation.
Product innovation management:
• Supports the business decisionmaking component of product
development. These engagements
are designed to reduce time-tomarket and product development
costs and they help increase the
pace of innovation.
Enterprise focus:
• Determines which components of a
business are strategic and critical
to success of the enterprise and
which are not. Then identifies
opportunities for improvement
and transformation by comparing
critical business requirements and
operational capabilities.
Shared services implementation:
• Our team builds a business case for
the transition to a shared services
operational model, designs a
custom shared services solution,
and then works with the client to
successfully implement the change.
Outsourcing governance:
• Helps organizations establish
a program management office
capable of supporting outsourcing
initiatives throughout their
lifecycle, from qualification and
assessment to development and
operation.
Demonstrating success at
numerous clients
At one client, a leading consumer
electronics manufacturer, benefits of
the project included:
• Reduction of overhead costs due to
redundant / inefficient overhead
services and infrastructure in
Corporate HQ and five worldwide
product divisions
• Annual savings of over $400
million, including: agreements
in infrastructure sharing and
governance, shared services
and elimination of cost drivers
and redundant resources, and
establishment of a project
management office for
active savings tracking and
reinforcement.
At a large manufacturer of aluminum
products, we developed and
implemented a new operating model.
The scope and results included:
• Analyzed operations for 15
business units in 10 countries
• Creation of global process models
• Over $300 million in annual
savings, including improved
processes, continued focus on cost
controls, and adoption of best
practices across business units.
Finally, we developed an outsourcing
strategy for a leading manufacturer of
semiconductor equipment. The scope
included:
• Working with client executive team
to develop a vision and operating
model
• Implemented the model, focusing
new investment in core business
processes and developing and
implementing the roadmap to
outsource all non-core processes
to save client significant cost and
increase competitive advantage.
Our Clients: A small sample of our clients includes leaders of every industry and all levels of Government:
ABB
Ford Motor Company
Motorola
Aetna
Goodrich Corporation
Novell
Alcoa
Halliburton
Panasonic
America Online
Honda Motor Co.
Raytheon
Ashland
IKON Office Solutions
Royal Philips Electronics
Atkins Nutritionals
International Truck and Engine Corporation
Selectron
Bloomberg
Lam Research
Siemens
BP
Lexmark International
Sony
Chevron Texaco
MCI
Tyco International
Circuit City Stores
McKesson
United States Department of Agriculture
Dupont
Medtronic
Verizon Communications
3
For more information
To learn more about IBM Business
Consulting Services contact your IBM
sales representative, or visit:
ibm.com/bcs
For more about IBM Strategy and
Change Services please visit:
ibm.com/bcs/strategy
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2004
IBM Global Services
Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
U.S.A.
Produced in the United States of America
10-04
All Rights Reserved
IBM and the IBM logo are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation in the United States, other countries,
or both.
Other company, product and service names may
be trademarks or service marks of others.
References in this publication to IBM products or
services do not imply that IBM intends to make
them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.
G510-5059-00