The Client:
The largest wholesale distributor of consumer products in their industry. At twice the size of their nearest competitor with about $5B in annual revenue, they manage a network of over 140 distribution centers, servicing over 70,000 customers.
The Challenge:
IT experienced challenges delivering a new technology solution for the Marketing Department. A previous attempt to execute the project failed due to defects discovered during User Acceptance Training. These critical defects were detrimental to the business process and led to the project being canceled. When kicking off the project for a second time, the client wanted to ensure the requirements phase included a robust analysis of the business process before starting design, so they did not run into similar issues.
The Strategy:
A Jabian team of business process experts led the effort, working with a cross-functional team of IT and Business stakeholders to drive a comprehensive approach to define the technology-agnostic business needs across all impacted process areas. Working side-by-side, the team completed the restarted project by:
- Leveraging Jabian’s Business & Process Analysis methodology to assure comprehensive analysis was completed on the business needs before technology design
- Developing a Business Process Landscape to identify impacted business processes and stakeholders
- Engaging impacted stakeholders and SMEs to produce and analyze comprehensive process flows prior to designing the solution
- Leveraging the completed Business Process Landscape and process flows to inform Change Management activities and provide structure for online training
Business Process Landscape
Business Process Flow
The Outcome:
As a result of our efforts, the project did not face the same challenges as the first attempt and the technology solution was successfully delivered. The solution went live and immediately delivered impactful results for the business, including enabling marketing leadership to see the status and metrics of all customer contracts in one view. This solution reduced these processes from two days’ effort to a single click. A key client summarized the benefit of the work by saying “if we would have taken this approach to requirements last time, the project would not have failed.”
