IBM, a leading name in IT industry, has the immense experience of driving organisational transformation. IBM not only has a strong Strategy and Transformation (S&T) team and global experience, but the company itself has transformed its business over the years.
IBM has perfect ability to present an integrated view supported by a participative approach to consulting.
CASE STUDY
The Paragon brand is promoted by the Paragon Group of Companies. The company started its operations in 1975 with a capacity of producing 1500 pairs of footwear everyday. Today, it produces more than 360,000 pairs of footwear per day, approximately 90 million in a year. Apart from rubber and non-rubber footwear, Paragon also manufactures school bags and solid tyres. Paragon has its head office in Kottayam with manufacturing centres in Bangalore, Salem and Hyderabad, and retails through a very strong dealer network spread across the country.
Requirement
While chalking out their broad expansion plan, Paragon felt the need for a more strategic approach in the following key areas:
- Articulating Vision and Values: Define and articulate a Vision for the company that reflects the collective aspiration of the organisation and Values it stands for. This is required as the employee base increases and fresh blood joins the organisation.
- Define growth strategy: Develop a comprehensive strategy to capitalise on the company’s present strengths and diverse market opportunities. Paragon aimed at transforming the approach towards growth from being “opportunity driven” to “deliberative and planned”.
- Enabling organisation structure: Review and redesign some of the organisational structure aspects (along with roles and responsibilities) to support effective execution of the proposed strategy and leverage cost efficiencies in operations.
- Governance and performance indicators: Ensure close monitoring on the successful implementation of the strategy and institutionalise the process of informed and speedy decision making.
Challenges
This is a typical case where the challenges are more focused on potential opportunity loss rather than any specific performance gaps as of today. Though the Paragon brand has been extremely successful in the market, it wanted to be more effective in managing their operations so as to capture bigger market opportunities. Paragon needed a more focused approach to its strategy and its execution that could support the company’s ambitious growth plans.
The solution implemented
The entire engagement is transformational in nature. During initial discussions, IBM S&T consultants engaged with Paragon’s Board of Directors to better articulate the transformation agenda. IBM used its proprietary Business Leadership Model (BLM) to understand the client’s needs and present the transformation roadmap.
How it was done
The success of this engagement hinged largely upon IBM’s understanding of its business capabilities, challenges, and aspirations. IBM, through a series of collaborative workshops and facilitated discussions, ensured that Paragon has a deeper view of its business and what exactly it is looking for from IBM as consultants.
What worked well is the collaborative approach of IBM consultants and their ability to see the business from Paragon’s perspective. The company received excellent executive support from IBM. The IBM team took an integrated approach to the requirement and came up with recommendations in the following areas:
- Mission and Vision Statements: IBM helped Paragon develop the Mission and Vision statements which will be the company’s guiding principles in whatever it does and will provide the view to where Paragon would be 10 years down the line. The consultants also helped the company in articulating Business Values for the organisation.
- Strategic priorities and strategy map: Having a Vision statement is not enough for success; only a flawless execution of the strategy can ensure that. IBM helped Paragon define its priorities and create a road map that would lead the company to its ultimate goal. This also involved defining the potential areas of growth and prioritisation between alternatives.
- Balanced score card: The purpose of this exercise was to define each of the strategic priorities and clearly indicated measures, owners and measurement modes. It would help people get better clarity in terms of their roles and responsibilities in the larger scheme of things.
- High level operating model: It provided a view of how the organisation would be operating post transformation and was closely aligned to the Vision. IBM used their proprietary Component Business Model (CBM) to determine the structure of the high level operating model
- Detailed organisation structure: The IBM consultants provided a detailed structure across each department and team. It helped Paragon get a comprehensive view of its resources and how their skills and expertise could be best leveraged.
About this project, Tushar Khosla, Associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services says, “It was an important and challenging engagement for us as we were not only helping Paragon with its growth strategy but also setting up its long term Mission and Vision. The Paragon management has a very clear perspective on their business and what they want to be in the future. It helped us immensely in charting out the right map for them.”
How is it going to help Paragon?
Joseph Zachariah, Director - Paragon says, “The outcome of this engagement will give Paragon better clarity and ensure greater commitment towards a shared vision and growth strategy for the company. We have developed a transformation agenda covering structure, systems, processes and people aspects that will enable Paragon achieve its aspirations in a planned and structured manner. This is a long term, transformational journey for Paragon and the findings of this engagement are going to influence Paragon’s business directions for long time to come.”
