Written by Sven Van Hoorebeeck
One of our clients, a listed IT solutions provider, called upon BrightWolves in the midst of a financial restructuring trajectory. Its #1 priority was to deliver a margin improvement programme in its largest business unit. They had finalized the blueprint of the programme together with a top-tier management consulting firm and were now looking for hands-on support to coordinate its implementation. That’s where BrightWolves came in. We not only coordinated the programme but also refined the hypotheses of the blueprint.
We followed up 10+ cross-functional workstreams, each composed of 15 to 20 initiatives. In parallel, we developed a financial model to quantify the EBITDA impact of each workstream.
BrightWolf Yves details his duties: “I worked closely with the head of PMO, who’s in charge of the margin improvement programme and reports directly to the CEO. My first responsibility was to ensure the programme’s progress, as well as to synthetize information from the different workstreams for the SteerCo (led by the CEO). Next to that, I developed a model that quantified the financial impact of ongoing projects and that allowed the ExCo to track and benchmark the performance of the programme. As is often the case, this involved gathering and analysing unstructured data from multiple stakeholders across the organisation, and turning them into relevant insights.”
Key for success is pace and governance
BrightWolves supports clients in key transformation challenges. In this specific case, we enabled the client to proactively follow up, coordinate and report on the ongoing cross-functional workstreams and we ensured that the crucial programme reached its goals by benchmarking performance and escalating attention points in due time.
Our support focused on steps 4 and 5 of the BrightWolves change framework: ‘create quick wins’ and ‘sustain and track effort’. Pivotal part of the success of the programme was our ability to rapidly deliver savings, as well as to maintain pace throughout the entire programme. Every week, there was more positive news to share. Transformation was clear.
Yves adds a personal note: “It’s really exciting to be involved in the strategic management of a +€1b multinational tech company that is subject to heavy competition and adverse market trends.” At BrightWolves we not only talk the talk, we also walk the walk.