A Global Chemical Manufacturer Develops an Enterprise Vision and Strategy

A CSC Supply Chain XPRESS team helped this $1 billion global chemical manufacturer through an ERP Package Evaluation & Selection (PES). The manufacturer had attempted to select a package twice before in the past five years with no consensus being reached among its business units. In addition, CSC realized that there were no enterprise vision or business and IT strategies formulated and disbursed to the enterprise. After the initial meetings with CSC, the enterprise headquarters and four disparate business units formulated and distributed a single enterprise vision with appropriate business and IT strategies for its execution and came to consensus on an ERP application complete with a deployment plan.

Approach

CSC worked collaboratively both internally and externally with the client to understand the dynamics of the situation:

• A Mixture of division-specific and home-grown applications with costs “eating up” most of the budget
• An enterprise that had been broken into four companies but was trying to formulate a new “Corporate” emerging and become truly global
• A desire to exploit commonality, integrate only when a necessity and focus on core business

Key Activities

During workshop conducted internationally, CSC and the client team:

Interviewed various corporate executives and client PES team members and formulated a draft enterprise vision with business and IT strategies that were refined in workshops and accepted.

Documented critical success factors; compiled key criteria (Functional, Technical, and General); identified and notified shortlist vendors; identified key business process requirements and related scenarios; developed vendor demo scripts; and developed an RFS during the XPRESS Strategy and Selection phase.

During the Demonstration phase of the PES, weighting factors and scoring approach were finalized; future state application and technology architecture were started; scripted vendor demos were conducted.

Determined a preferred vendor and conducted gap analysis / business impact / risk assessment; conducted initial vendor contract negotiations; completed future state application and technology architecture; developed a implementation strategy and roadmap; identified a project team structure and estimated implementation costs (non-infrastructure); identified technology infrastructure gaps and estimated costs to remove gaps; identified business benefits, risks and developed a high level business case during the Finalize and Plan phase.

Results

CSC executed a four week Vision and Strategy Formulation phase before our XPRESS methodology, which was modified to accommodate work sessions in the UK & United States and a third vendor demo session. As a result CSC was able to direct this enterprise to select an ERP solution to accommodate anticipated dramatic changes in organization size, strategy, and people.