Ford INM
Developed an effective management process that doubled and redoubled the size of the organization while maintaining effective control and cost.
The Client
The client is one of the world's largest automotive manufacturers, with sales of more than 6 million units and turnover exceeding $100 billion in 1998, employing 340,000 plus at sites all over the world.
The Challenge
Automotive manufacturers are striving to generate distinctive brand images and get closer to their customers.
E-business is a vital tool to make it happen. Critical to the success of e-business initiatives are clarity of strategy and fast, effective implementation of program management programs.
E-business initiatives require complex marketing and technical coordination across numerous business partners including divisional business units, creative agencies, Internet development teams, internal support groups, and various other vendors and partners.
Other key challenges included:
- The development, on-going improvement and maintenance of this complex network was to be critical for the program's success
- The implementation of a simple yet effective program and project management methods and discipline needed to be leveraged and deployed
The Pcubed Solution
To deliver an effective solution, Ford adopted a best-in-the-business approach, selecting world-leading partners for strategy development, program management, creative media, software development, operations, technology and support. From Pcubed's experience, the introduction of simple program management practices tailored to e-business projects was key to ensuring effective delivery. Pcubed developed an innovative management process to control the overall program by:
- Implementing a system where the overall strategy was broken down into eight programs, and each program into four to five concurrent projects
- Creating a simple four-step project life cycle from initiation and planning to execution and closure
- Ensuring effective communication among the business teams, partners and suppliers on individual projects and across projects using web tools
- Identifying and managing the dependencies between projects to ensure that the overall program was on strategy
- Developing and maintaining individual and overall program and project work plans
- Monitoring progress and developing action plans to manage and minimize issues and risks
- Identifying synergies, integration opportunities, and dependencies among projects
Key elements of the solution included:
- Effective communication across partners and organizational levels
- A consistent approach to project management that eliminated gaps, and delivered the strategic intent
- The management of deliverables by each partner and vendor to ensure the project's business value
- Reduced costs by minimizing duplication of effort and implementing a cost management plan