The quality and impact of SDI's work is evidenced by the critical business results that our clients were able to achieve due to our partnership.
For a few key examples, click on client results.
”The work we’ve done with SDI has not only made a difference, it was the single biggest factor in our successful transformation as an organization.”
Dave Williams
Fortune 50 Company
Client Result 1:
Large Scale International Culture Change Implemented
Client Result 2:
Global Off Shoring Project Accelerated
Client Result 3:
Brand Management Team Revives a Declining Brand
Client Result 4:
Regional Bank Produces a Breakthrough in Sales
Client Result 5:
Large Scale Cultural Transformation
Global Pharmaceutical Firm
Situation
A newly appointed CIO of a global pharmaceutical firm was committed to transform the IT division
from a group of highly independent, siloed country entities to one IT team, aligned on a common vision and able to innovate and collaborate powerfully. Specifically, SDI:
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Designed the structure for transformation and the roll out of a large-scale change process that allowed the new culture to unfold and cascade from a small senior team through the entire organization.
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Provided consulting support to the CIO to design and enroll a team of senior managers from across eastern and western Europe to not just passively agree to, but fully commit to, personally bring the leadership necessary to generate profound cultural shift.
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Transferred our advanced methodology to the leadership team to equip them with the necessary tools for moving the current siloed state to a unified culture.
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Enrolled a strong cadre of middle managers in an authentic stand for this new culture and equipped them to coach a larger group of opinion leaders to onboard the whole organization in SDI’s advanced methodology for high performance.
Results Our Client Produced
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Surpassed off-shoring target of 400 FTEs in India, which would not have been possible without the new culture and associated practices in collaboration and innovation. The program drove over $25 million of productivity gains while maintaining high morale.
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Drastically simplified key intranet process, saving $11 million.
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Reorganized ERP organization to leverage synergy between Finance and Operations, freeing up time and energy.
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Created compelling vision for IT and communicated it to the organization in a way that built commitment, not just compliance.
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Designed and implemented a global governance process that enabled the organization to achieve the efficiencies available from a strong central organization with the flexibility needed by the regional teams.
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Created an IT Professional of the Future program that provides the continuous education and management support to enable associates to develop themselves for higher value roles, as more commodity type roles are outsourced.
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The team leading this culture transformation was acknowledged by winning the annual global award to the team that best exhibited outstanding teamwork, innovation, customer focus and business impact.
Off-shoring Project
Global IT Organization
Situation
A global firm with revenues of more than $30B was committed to transforming its IT organization by significantly lowering operating costs while providing higher value-adding skills to the business, rather than increased commodity skills, such as programming.
The first element of this initiative was to design and implement a U.S. off-shoring plan within the next year. The leadership team felt confident in their team’s level of talent, clarity of direction and careful planning. Flawless execution was the key to success, however, there was immediate worry and resistance throughout the organization about change and layoffs that might accompany off-shoring. Empowering high-quality execution was where SDI made its main contribution.
Results Our Client Produced
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In the first year, initial off-shoring program savings covered start up costs plus $3 million in cost avoidance. This program continues to deliver $5 million per year in savings.
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Managers who easily could have gone through the motions of compliance and declared the program unworkable at the very first obstacle, instead became champions of off-shoring.
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The global off-shoring strategy was jump started and an off-shoring playbook was created, which included processes, templates, tools and methods to drive a successful off-shoring program. The playbook was then provided to IT teams across the globe.
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A foundational volume of work was established with the offshore vendors and favorable rates as well as high-quality resources were secured for other off-shoring initiatives.
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A senior manager responsible for a significant portion of this engagement said in his acknowledgment of SDI’s contribution:
“In order to manage the numerous issues that arose with the program, the team had to engage in all levels of conversations, including possibility, action, breakdown, etc. They overcame all obstacles, they found solutions to tough problems, they bridged cultural gaps, they counseled and supported the impacted employees and they later became mentors to other managers facing the offshoring challenge.”
Brand Management Team
Global Pharmaceutical Company
Situation
A historically strong brand was in the late stage of its life cycle. The brand team was challenged with getting the sales force committed and effective at selling their brand, which was especially difficult given that the sales organization was also accountable for selling several other blockbuster brands, leaving little time for anything else. Empowering the Brand Team to build the sales force’s commitment to this now declining brand was the breakthrough result we were asked to help achieve.
Results Our Client Produced
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Revenue for the year exceeded target by $8 million (11%) with an upward trend for the next year.
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With no formal authority over the sales force, the brand team built passion and a true commitment for selling their brand, not just compliance with hitting a minimum quota or making a certain number of sales calls each week.
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Achieved breakthrough sales results despite having a marketing budget cut at mid-year because results were exceeding forecast.
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The brand was moved out of the harvest category and back to the strategic category.
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The Brand Director was promoted to run a flagship brand.
Regional VP Creates a Breakthrough
Sales Banking Industry
Situation
A large bank had committed to elevating the sales results of its branches requiring bank managers, who previously had been accountable for only branch operations, to now be responsible for developing a significant level of new business. SDI worked with a senior executive accountable for 22 branches to develop his ability to coach his branch managers to move from a strictly management mindset and skill set, to becoming effective sales people as well.
Results Our Client Produced
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The combined 22 branches began producing sales at a whole new level, including 3 sales in one week ranging from $600,000 – $1 million.
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Bank Managers began to identify and drive structural changes needed to support a condition of selling.
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The number of self-generated sales calls per week for bank managers increased significantly.
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Key branch managers were developed and retained, avoiding the cost and disruption of replacing them.
Achieving Record Business Results
Global IT Services Company
Situation
An IT Services company, with over $5 billion in annual revenue, was engaged in a reinvention of the business.When we first spoke to the president of the firm’s largest business unit, he articulated that the business unit had not constituted itself as an integrated, collaborative team. Instead, they were a group of highly results-oriented individuals working side-by-side. SDI's goal was to build a championship team that through exceptional collaboration and innovation would deliver breakthrough results that were not possible with the team operating in silos.
Results Our Client Produced
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Delivered record results in all three financial categories: orders, revenue and profit at levels that previously occurred as insurmountable challenges.
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In only 10 weeks, turned a $13 million forecasted quarterly operating loss into a $5 million profit.
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Broke down the silos that individual accountabilities can unintentionally create with people taking responsibility for the entire team’s results, rather than focusing on just their own, revealing major opportunities to empower each other to accelerate business results.
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Every senior leader participating in the engagement acknowledged the program’s profound access on their leadership.