A leading global life science company asked for a-connect's support in managing and optimizing a portfolio of 12 projects around 4 work streams dedicated to cost reduction and 2 workstreams focused on revenue growth.

a-connect provided, over a period of 2 years, 30 professionals who identified savings and implemented programs to reduce costs in indirect procurement, logistics, human capital, and costs of goods and services. These comprised project managers, who managed the identification and realization of cost reductions; experts, who were able to identify savings and lead tactical procurement negotiations; and "doers," who helped capture the savings.

The return on investment for these projects was greater than 10:1 with significant cost savings realization still continuing.

For revenue growth, a-connect provided 11 professionals including project managers who were able to manage the identification of incremental sales and problem solvers, who served as strategists and planners. These growth projects have, to date, identified more that $100 million in revenue value.

A leading global insurance company launched an all encompassing Operational Transformation program to include both North American and European operations. The goal was to reduce the company's cost base significantly, while also improving customer experience and satisfaction.

a-connect supported a large scale PMO to identify operational improvements across 5 functional groups. In order to quickly obtain operational improvements and to increase internal buy-in, the executive board decided to run the project internally and augment internal teams with a-connect specialists and resources. a-connect consultants supported an internal team of 130 people, including 18 project managers.

a-connect professionals helped develop a Target Operating Model for each of the global functions to determine which operations should be conducted centrally, locally, in-house, outsourced, downsized, or off-shored. The model also determined how each function should be organized along with a business case for developing the new structure, and an implementation plan.

The intense design phase led to more than USD 1 billion in improvement initiatives. a-connect supported the implementation for several of these initiatives.

The company had a disciplined focus on effectively managing costs, but one division had been challenged with a target to further reduce their indirect costs by 10%. The client asked a-connect to join corporate management in an effort to implement and ensure that further cost reduction measures were sustainable over time and to support local management in making appropriate trade offs that would not negatively impact service and quality.

a-connect initiated the project with a team of 3 independent professionals on 3 different continents to focus on respective operations. We also provided a sparring partner to support the corporate management and ensure coordination, alignment and delivery of project deliverables across various geographies.

The a-connect team of project professionals coordinated a mix of top down and bottom up measures across various geographies. An analysis of the cost structure led to a deep dive into identifying key levers for reducing costs. These measures included delayering of the local organizations, process re-engineering, and elimination of lower value-add activities. a-connect also created business cases for re-location and shared services. The a-connect professionals aslo supported sharing of best practices, a cost reduction catalogue, methodology for overarching topics and organizational restructuring.

The project had a satisfactory impact on realizing tangible savings. A quantified and prioritized list of improvement opportunities was recommended, reducing the indirect cost base by 10% compared to base line in the prior year. a-connect also recommended changes to the operating model for ensuring the measures would remain sustainable.

The company's transport & logistics spend of nearly 1 billion was managed on different levels throughout the organization, The various units used hundreds of logistics providers worldwide and there was little transparency regarding freight volumes, costs and providers. Because several cost reduction projects had failed, the regional units were skeptical of logistics savings projects re-initiated by central management.

a-connect deployed a team of five independent professionals over 10 months. Initially, the team generated a fast-track excel visibility tool to enable immediate savings and build credibility for the project. a-connect experts supported several internal teams across regions in provider re-negotiations and achieved USD 3 million savings one month into the project.

The speed of the initial savings restored credibility for the project with both central management, as well as with the regional teams. a-connect was then asked to set-up and support a global transport & logistics cost savings program to deliver USD 150 million.

The project included several workstreams to simplify operations, optimize demand planning, the warehouse and transport network, and to leverage IT tools, enabling analytics. Every effort was piloted to check feasibility and generate successes to fuel energy among the team members. Regular savings tracking & update mechanisms, as well as communication and celebration of successes helped to maintain a high level of motivation for the project.

The project generated more than half of the targeted savings within 1.5 years. Also, the transition from external support to internal management was accomplished with each a-connect team member transferring knowledge to the internal team to assume full responsibility of the on-going efforts.