Case Studies

Case: Process Standardization

The Challenge

A health care organization acquires millions of dollars of medical and non-medical supplies from multiple vendors. There was no consistent approach to source products. Faced with significant budget constraints, the organization turned to strategic sourcing to reduce costs. It seek to streamline the purchasing practices across the organization and identify opportunities to leverage its purchasing power more effectively.

Intervention

Starting with a review of the existing practices, the deficiencies were identified. As some of the supplies are critical to the health and safety of the patients, physicians, and the practitioners, extra care was needed in devising options and assessing the quality and viability of the alternatives. The process required collaboration with the affected stakeholders to understand the needs and critical considerations that needed to be taken into account. Through detailed analyses and evaluation of options, a streamlined process was developed and piloted before it was rolled out to the rest of the organization.

Results

  • Standardized the policies, practices, and guidelines for purchasing
  • Reviewed select categories of medical and non-medical supplies, analyzed volume, existing contracts, price, and alternative sourcing approaches to identify best options
  • Worked with physicians and stakeholders to assess options
  • Realized savings of millions of dollars annually

Case: Harmonization Strategy and Operational Alignment

The Challenge

A merger of two telecommunications companies brought together two mail order business units. Both units were distinctively different, from product offerings, sales approaches, return policies, customer support, vendors to billing systems. The newly formed company needed to harmonize the two business units in order to streamline strategy and operations.

Intervention

Due to the differences in the original strategy of the business models, it was necessary to revisit the mandate and clarify the vision for moving forward. Once the direction was clear, an extensive review of the two business models was conducted. The review covered product and vendor selection, sales commissions, return policies, order fulfillment, billing guidelines, call centre support, product support by vendors, roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, billing and warehousing systems. Best practices were referenced to harmonize the business models. A team of over 30 members representing the diverse groups impacted were involved in the project.

Results

  • A harmonized model that eliminated confusion and frustration for employees
  • Increased profit margin from standardized product offerings
  • Enhanced product support from vendor resulted from higher sales volume
  • Productivity improvement from streamlined processes and the adoption of a single system
  • Delivered significant savings year over year

Case: Design of Corporate Performance Measures

The Challenge

An organization updated its strategic plan and needed to align the corporate performance measures with the corporate goals and strategies. The existing measures included industry standard measures and other measures that were identified for prior years’ plans. Some of them became dated and didn’t support the latest goals.

Intervention

Working with the executives and the designated senior managers, a series of workshops were held to translate the corporate goals and strategies into concrete results that the organization deemed important. The process involved challenging the status quo measures, deciphering the meaning of the strategy statements, and coming up with meaningful measures. Worked with the team to define the details for each measure.

Results

  • Gained consensus among the executives on the most important results that the organization should focus on
  • Developed new measures for newly added goals and strategies
  • Finetuned existing measures to better reflect results that are indicative of success
  • Modified the alignment of existing measures to hone the proper focus for resource allocation and priorities
  • Eliminated measures that were irrelevant

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