How the Operational Contribution by Country of one of the top 5 retailers worldwide can help driving the Global Transformation Plan
Company Overview
This leading retail company is present in 17 countries (revenue of about €52 billion in 2016), and covers all food retail formats with nearly 4,000 points of sale under the same brand banner: hypermarkets, superstores, supermarkets and ultra-convenience stores, alongside online shopping and drive-in outlets in some countries. Resulting the 35th largest employer worldwide and has 350,000 employees.
Context
The company was implementing a new organization to help complete the second stage of its transformation. They began the transformation two years prior with the launch of a strategic plan that involved thousands of its workers. This revolutionary plan seeks to meet the expectations of its customers and employees and to adapt to new habits and methods of consumption and major changes in its competitive landscape.
Today we are in the middle of the 3-year Global transformation plan of the company decided by the end of 2016.
The company is gradually transitioning to a multi-format “phygital” player that from one day to the next can reinvent customer experience.
Since the end of 2017, the countries in which the company operates have all been multi-format and have embarked on the convergence of their banners under a single brand for each country. A part of its transformation is changing its governance by adopting an executive committee that is more international and at the same time closer to the ground.
Statements in 2016
In 2016, the company made of the following statements:
- They had different PPM tools in the 17 countries and it was impossible to get a simple vision of project alignment with enterprise strategy because the tools were not linked. Some countries didn’t even have a PPM tool.
- There was clearly a lack of tool to formalize project portfolio management.
- There was also a need to drive a set of support services (for all countries) to guarantee the consistency and effectiveness of PPM data.
At the same time, they built a new information system, based on 16 products instead of more than 200 applications, one of them is Triskell.
Decision and vision end of 2016
At the end of 2016 and with the help of a third party company, the company has decided to share a common methodological foundation of project management and a unique tool for the company and the 14 countries.
They also decided to ensure consistency between the strategic plan and execution at the operational level in the different territories.
The goal is to provide a portfolio structure per country and put in place a “transformation proof steering” to really measure the contribution of operational projects to strategic plan, this is one of the key points. How can we easily measure the progress of projects in connection with the strategic vision?
Choice of Triskell
The choice of Triskell Software was made in May 2017 to reach this ambition. Over time, there should be 2,500 users in the system from 14 different countries.
They decided to do a Proof of Concept in second quarter of 2017 and then they deployed the global strategic plan in Triskell end of June.
For the operational deployment, they will go step by step. They have defined standard features and minimum data for all countries. In December 2017: two global divisions deployed on the execution and operational scope. A couple of countries have been deployed and the others are still in progress.
Project Scope - Operational Management Components
At the operational level, they have defined a standard methodology and some mandatory objects to be managed like deliverables for instance. They also offer different tools to project managers, it is optional depending on their culture and maturity on PPM. The goal is really to ask a minimum of information to Project Managers and then to propose tools like Kanban, Scrumboard, Risk Management or GanttChart.
Triskell implemented features
In this solution, there is one portfolio per country and a global portfolio for the strategic plan.
At the operational level, the users can schedule their projects and manage resources, they can monitor their budgets and manage all the costs of a project. They can also track key dates for milestones and deliverables. They also have the ability to monitor risks and associated action plans.
In addition to these operational features, there is a feature called “Transformation plan steering” which allows the follow-up of country deliverables and support services in response to proof of transformation. How I can measure my progress with pieces of evidence?
Portfolios in this solution
Triskell is really a multiple portfolio solution for this company with the strategic portfolio and its breakdown through the 8 strategic programs, the 43 main projects and strategic proof of transformation.
And then for each country, there is one portfolio managed by a territory portfolio manager, he/she can have different role depending on the country. There is another level in the country portfolio to manage sub projects where deliverables that will contribute to proof or evidences are defined. They use what is called related objects between portfolios in Triskell. We can have different deliverables from different projects and different countries that will contribute to a Proof of the Transformation Plan.
Contribution to the Transformation Plan
Deliverables are managed to track and measure the company’s progress against the transformation plan. There is a workflow and alert process to inform the territory manager in case of delay.
Results – Benefits
In terms of results and benefits for the company, they can automatically measure the progress on major project and strategic programmes.
They have a real and unique system in place to measure and follow the transformation of the company. There is one portfolio per territory to manage operational projects and deliverables that contribute to proof of transformation programs in a global strategic portfolio.
This allows a global and per country vision in the same tool.
The Triskell service provides real-time information for the territory portfolio manager to better manage and arbitrate territory contribution to global transformation plan.
And finally, this retail company has one unique tool for the main roles with specific and dedicated features.
Conclusion
The company learnt in this project that you need to ask few relevant information about progress to the countries to have an efficient management system and then address optionally specificities per country because culture and maturity in project management are really very different per country. If you ask too many information, contributors will not be able to update the system.
The minimum system at the operational level must be very simple. The company is working at simplifying the solution, limiting the number of levels in the structures and propose optionally visual management tools per category of user (Kanban, Scrumboard, Gantt…).
Highlights
Business Challenge
Create a Strategic Plan disconnected from the Operational plan.
Increase visibility to link execution and capacity with
budgets.
Flexible structure that allows management at different levels.
Solution
A multi-portfolio SaaS solution working as a unique repository with the ability to manage a large amount of data.
Results
Better governance at the strategic level.
Quick development and implemantation.
Company Overview
Industry
Retail
Type
Private
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