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.