Programme Leadership

Case Study 1:  Client Facing, Managed Services Expert to Fill a Resource Gap  

Need: With a small leadership team, this business needed a safe pair of hands to oversee the implementation of a major new trade marketing business win. Their new client had already engaged a well-known consultancy to manage the programme on their behalf and they needed someone capable of engaging with this team as well as their senior central and multiple local client stakeholders. Someone who could hit the ground running and allow their leadership team to focus back on pipeline generation. 

Solution: With significant experience of managed service business models, I was able to jump straight into a project already in flight (wave 1 of 3 completed) and assess change, operational and commercial risk as well as timeline requirements. Combined team size of 67. In addition to leading multiple workstreams through local market due diligence involving historic spend data analysis and facilitating the adoption of operating procedures, I led contract negotiations with Russia and a recent new company acquisition in Serbia (under the existing Master Services Agreement). In parallel, I supported my client with their launch into 18 new markets requiring recruitment, business, banking and tax entity setup. Programme Leadership was consolidated under my own direction for wave 3 with my role acting as an independent party for both my client and their client. 

Outcome: The organisations technology and managed services solution was successfully implemented across 22 countries (CEE, Russia, Nigeria) with minimal disruption despite the timeline commencing in March 2020 at the very start of the COVID-19 outbreak around the globe requiring intense management of unexpected challenges.

Duration: Two waves of 5 months each.

Case Study 2: Client Onboarding and Operations Standardisation for a PE Backed Start-Up

Need: This business needed additional, experienced resource capacity to allow their own leadership team to continue to build their pipeline for growth whilst a significant new global client account was onboarded. Although part of a mature, global organisation, this business was effectively a start-up with PE backing and an intent to build the business fast. Part of the remit was to build standard operating procedures and best practice for future re-use.

Solution: After a joint review of the scope requirement, Stormchute was engaged to provide two senior consultant resources at a fixed cost per month for an average of 6 days per week. The scope of delivery required workstream oversight and leadership of customer engagement, service rollout and supply chain onboarding across regions. Client based work involved: data and gap analysis, current state benchmarking, the drafting of master services schedules, change and communications planning/execution across multiple customer and third party groups. Internal business work additionally included new entity business requirement assessments, due diligence assessment templating, multiple technology/integration projects and standard operating procedures design. 

Outcome: Statement of work and delivery targets were met. Existing staff were supported as they became acquainted with new ways of working. Templates now exist for the business to utilise for new projects, governance, communications, change and sales CRM opportunity tracking. 

Duration: 12 months.

Case Study 3: Lead Consultant, Go-To-Market Development

Need: The Global Marketing division of a global supply chain business was in the process of refreshing their Go-To-Market strategies for individual business solution offerings to improve the relevance and timeliness of their targeted buyer persona marketing. The business had already decided to ground their approach in a known buyer journey methodology but wanted to make sure it was customised to suit their business and then templated to ensure consistency going forward.

Solution: I undertook an agile approach by tackling specific business area Go-To-Market refreshes whilst at the same time developing what would eventually become the "tried and tested" standard methodology. Initially focusing on their Packaging Solutions business, I reviewed  current/forecast market conditions and the businesses competitive landscape before engaging with key internal stakeholders and customers. A series of facilitated workshops were held with Business Unit leaders to build consensus for target audience and buyer persona before then building out each persona and developing value propositions which could be reflected in online/offline marketing activities. 

All work was handed over to Global Marketing with a fully budgeted 18-month communications plan. This approach was then widened to cover business wide responses for ESG and Digitalisation. A tailored, best practice methodology was developed by adopting the best of each Go-To-Market strategy (including those not worked on by myself) and, where appropriate, closing out any gaps. In some cases, elements of iterations of the methodology were dropped in favour of alternative approaches which could be more effectively executed by Customer Communications.

Outcome: Global Marketing signed off the template as their organisations new methodology for Go-To-Market. Non Marketing Business Unit stakeholders were all introduced to the process in a way that included them in the development of their customer communications strategy which built support for the work despite the additional effort required. The change to previous ways of working with Global Marketing was taken seriously and the business response was exceptional. 

Duration: 12 months. 

Stormchute was subsequently re-engaged to support a refresh of the organisations product portfolio Go-To-Market requirement (E-commerce, Packaging, Clinical Logistics, Service Logistics, 4PL, Transport and Real Estate Services). 2 consultants for 4 months.

Case Study 4:  Client Facing, Shopper Marketing Due Diligence  

Need: With a Shopper Marketing expert heading up their review of existing online and offline ways of working, this agency required external consultant support to add further depth and resource capacity to their due diligence undertaking with a global food and beverages leader.    

Solution: Working hand-in-hand with the programme lead, I led the organisation of discovery and strategic solutioning workshops mapping process and establishing the groundwork for historical "as is" spend with four local end client trade marketing, brand marketing and logistics operations. Findings from the work led to the identification of value levers for benefit gain within the end client's business. Cost/benefit analysis on 13 identified opportunities for improvement was undertaken so that our combined team could select and work through the greatest common opportunities for each market involved. Regular checkpoints were undertaken to ensure our interpretation of the findings was accurate and that there was consensus across all parties with our findings and recommendations.

Outcome: A comprehensive three year plan was developed and presented to the agency's end client CMO summarising the benefit opportunity available to the agency's end client including all associated investments required to make benefit release achievable. The focus of this plan was to provide the basis for informed cost optimisation decision making without risking the performance of their brand with shoppers.

Duration: 8 months.

Case Study 5:  Product Lead, Service Offering Extension 

Need:  The Packaging Solutions business of a global supply chain organisation wanted to qualify the viability of a new service product within the global logistics and supply chain market and thereafter build out their Target Operating Model and path to mobilisation. 

Solution: A structured approach was adopted starting with research and analysis of the new market segment to determine it's addressable market for this service extension. Interviews with identified Customers and their internal Global Account Managers were undertaken to pinpoint the main challenges being experienced today. A number of Suppliers within the same or complementary space were also interviewed to highlight barriers to successful service provision. 

Internally, I engaged with the existing Packaging Solutions network to understand the impact that a new service would add to existing operations. Findings were used to help build an optimum, more diverse, future service design. Each element of the product offering was defined, commerials principles and a standard target operating model established. This was supported by the findings of the research and analysis previously undertaken but informed by corporate policy. Regional stakeholders were kept engaged to maintain alignment and secure their support. 

Outcome: A fully costed 5-year strategic plan for global mobilisation was presented to their division's Executive Board who agreed to extend services. I was subsequently re-engaged to provide leadership and direction for realising the mobilisation of the new service product with an initial focus on UK&I and EMEA regions. Work involved global sales, solutions and customer services stakeholder engagement, local resource model adoption, new technology selection, new business development, onboarding and handover to the permanent global leader. 

Duration: 4 months followed by a further 9 months.

Case Study 6: Product Sponsorship and End User Requirements Validation

Need: Retained by an agency to undertake business end user requirements validation on a global technology solutions project to join up supply chain sourcing and ordering with client invoicing and internal AP/AR services. The end goal was to produce a fully costed and realistic business case for consideration. 

Solution: Represented the voice of the business within the agency's technology team. In-house and contracted team size 54. Undertook in depth process mapping and used this to help technology understand areas of operational criticality that had not been previously considered. Ensured IT strategy, requirements definition and operational resource assessments were realistic by conducting gap analysis against previously understood requirements. Produced the business operations detail for a SaaS RFP and represented the business during provider decision making. Helped develop and present the investment case with the CTO for the preferred cloud-based solution to the Executive Board. 

Outcome: Board approved recommended 3rd party product approach valued at ~£1m and scheduled it to commence Q4 2020. 

Duration: 5 months.

Case Study 7: Consultant, Contract Schedules Development

Need: My client's business was expanding resulting in a need to move away from a traditional transactional customer engagement model to a more formal, contract-based services model. Existing operating procedures were not immediately transferable to this new model, but the business needed to make sure that any changes to their "as is" remained viable for operations to use without breaking their existing, effective ways of working.

Solution: The primary trigger for action was the need for a comprehensive set of managed services contract schedules to be developed to support a new business win. Following several discovery sessions and a review of existing documentation, I produced schedules which (1) defined terminology for customer and legal counsel reference (2) described service provision (3) detailed service level commitments (4) detailed business continuity (BCP) and emergency response handling and (5) documented agreed contract pricing. 

All schedules were closely cross-referenced against current / future ways of working so that they could be easily repurposed for other contracts and operations management. As the solution included an element of Software as a Service, the BCP module also included a detailed breakdown of IT security. GDPR and Time to Recover elements.

Outcome: With a background in outsourced services management, I was able to produce the necessary documentation with minimal input from my client's management team. Further, their legal counsel only needed to be brought into the discussion once the draft documents had been produced and approved internally reducing their own time billed significantly. 

Duration: 3 weeks across 3 months.