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Data Strategy
Organizational re-design for digital transformation
Our client a multinational Life Science corporation was facing the challenges of transformation towards a modern data driven marketing and sales organization. Historically grown organizational structures were hindering this process. Also, recently added data and digital competencies did not integrate well with the established competencies of e.g. market research and sales analytics, nor was there a sufficient connection between business perspective and data and digital competencies.
Therefore, the first task was to define the strategic positioning and orientation of the enabler unit, which includes all data analytics and digital functions. The second task was to adapt the unit’s organizational structure, roles, responsibilities, and processes to better enable it to provide value to its stakeholders within the overall organization.
3 steps to sustainable organizational re-design:
- identification of the relevant fields of action
- strategic positioning: formulation of a viable vision & mission statement
- designing an organization under the premises clarity and scalability
A two-fold approach – top-down and bottom-up was chosen to ensure broad support
Together with the client’s Chief Digital Officer, we derived the relevant strategic fields of action for the unit. These are based on the corporate strategy and the market trends that are particularly relevant in the context of digital transformation. With this foundation, the vision and a mission statement for the unit were developed. The results of this initial phase of the project were refined with the CDO’s directors and their team leaders to incorporate their perspectives and ensure that they identified with these critical elements. In the following organizational redesign two premises were guiding us: Clarity; to ensure accountability and effective interfaces to the unit’s various stakeholders and scalability; to ensure flexibility to adapt to changing stakeholder needs according to business priorities.
We considered alternative structures and evaluated their pros and cons based on our client’s circumstances and selected the one with the best fit as working hypothesis. To fill this mere structure with life, we defined the required capabilities and functions based on vision, mission, and the strategic fields of action. We also considered what worked well and did not work well in the status quo. In this project phase we applied a mixed approach of top-down development and bottom-up refinement. Thus we ensured a clear future-oriented perspective while incorporating valuable insights from the past.
Organizational redesign guided by a common northern star
The clearly articulated realignment gave the unit’s various divisions and teams a common northern star: A joint understanding of the value they bring to the organization being more than the sum of their individual parts.
The result of the organizational redesign was a lean organizational structure with clear interfaces to business units and other enabler functions. It included three departments each with a clear focus of competencies. To name an example, one new department unified all analytical disciplines, from market research, analytics & visualization, data engineering to data science. From now on, those disciplines should closely collaborate and jointly deliver insights on customers and customer interactions and translate those into consistent recommendations to the business. In addition to the three departments, a project management office was established to ensure focused project realization across all departments in line with business priorities leading the way for cross-functional project prioritization, initiation, conduction, and review.
The client was very satisfied with the collaboration and the result and asked FELD M to support them with regular reviews and iterations as required.
