Phase 3: Rolling out to the rest of company
After the success of phase 2, the next challenge was to complete the validation and implementation planning for the next wave of cost saving initiatives. Most of the teams put against the initiatives would not have direct McKinsey support and it was our challenge to train the clients' workforce to successfully complete many areas of the effort. Also, a few new areas of major opportunity had been uncovered during phase 2. As a result, McKinsey's primary responsibilities in this phase were to:
-
Coach and prepare our full time client team members to lead subsequent activities
-
Develop a broader training program for divisions that had not yet been introduced to the process
-
Provide problem solving leadership in select challenging areas
The successful completion of this phase ensured that the program had the impact we had envisioned. The successful mentoring and training efforts gave the client a group of leaders who could implement subsequent improvements to meet their goals of more than $200 million in identified savings. Also, our problem solving leadership in some of the thorniest areas resulted in those areas outperforming their targets by about 25%. One example was energy management where rising electricity costs had threatened to derail improvement efforts. A McKinsey facilitated effort yielded a long term energy acquisition/management strategy which saved the client a significant amount of money.
|
