ENGAGEMENT
An international insurance company sought advice on updating its operating model with new business capabilities that would support an ongoing global transformation. The global Finance transformation effort included migrating finance systems to SAP, advancing its shared services for accounting functions and formulating change management plans across global finance regions. As part of this broader transformation, the company conducted a full evaluation of its organizational structure, capabilities, and skills advancement, to better position it for future success. The company then sought assistance transforming and modernizing its finance operations by implementing a new operating model and organization structure for North American finance operations, focused on Digital capabilities.
PROBLEM
The current digital capabilities and team member skills were not sufficiently supporting future transformation goals. Leadership desired a new focus on digital services and a reallocation of resources and processes to better align with market requirements. Several internal teams were focused on historical ways of operating, so the organization requested third-party help to transform its operating model.
SOLUTION
DayBlink Consulting assisted with the design and implementation of a new organization structure, including the introduction of a Digital Center of Excellence. We hosted a multi-day workshop, aimed at gathering insight and understanding into leaders’ appetites for change, including the introduction of new data-centric and digital-focused organizational capabilities. After assessing current performance measurements and reviewing existing operational functions and workflow processes, we proposed a future-state operating model that would restructure the North American finance operations to be more agile, forward-thinking and collaborative.
We began by assessing leadership’s appetite for potential change – how open each leader was to introducing new business capabilities, and which capabilities they deemed most beneficial. Various surveys and interviews were conducted with the North American senior leadership team (pre, during and post the multi-day workshop). We identified key business objectives and then structured a multi-day workshop aimed at clarifying necessary and new capabilities.
Next, we conducted a gap analysis to understand what new tools and skills were required by the enterprise to achieve the goals of the ongoing global transformation. DayBlink Consulting introduced improvement opportunities across 7 different expertise areas: digital, automation, data governance, data analytics & visualization, agile improvements, business interpretation, and talent development. We then provided several operating model options and reviewed in detail the consequences of each.
RESULT
The client approved the new roles and skills to be introduced across each of the capability categories, with the focus on improving enterprise-wide analytics and financial reporting.
The result of this engagement was the production of two detailed operating model redesign proposals, preparing the client to proceed with a detailed analysis and design and begin preparing for the organizational transformation to the future-state operating model. DayBlink Consulting also provided the regional CFO with a proposed implementation approach including key integration activities, tools, and outcomes, and a representative roadmap outlining potential execution timelines.
Over the next year, the client implemented one of the operating models as part of its transformation, leveraging the framework, activities and tools that we provided and completing the effort on time and budget.