Process Improvements With Measurable Results
See Our Results Below: Select an organization or industry based area below to view the related case study.
Organization Based
Broadly applicable to many companies and industries.
Support Groups:
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Marketing
- Information Technology
- Corporate Services
- Shared Service Centers
- Compliance/Audit
- Legal
- Internal Improvement Teams
Line Groups:
- Field Sales & Support
- Customer Services
- Contact Centers
- New Product Development
- Post-Sales Services
Supply Chain Operations:
- Order Management
- Master Data Management
- Procurement
- Materials Management
- Production
- Distribution
- Quality Management
Industry Based
Document operations which are unique to particular business segments and industries.
Services:
- Financial Services
- Media Services
- Broadcast
- Newspapers
- Digital
- Magazines
- Books
- Information Services
- Health Plans
- Telecommunications
- Utilities
Supply Chain:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Chemicals
- Food Production/Processing
- Paper/Packaging
- Industrial Products
- Technology
- Print and Mail
- Consumer Packaged Goods
- Retail and Distribution
- Oil and Gas

Human Resources
Global Shared Services
North America; Europe
Project Sponsor:
Project Descriptions:
Non-technology, self-funding improvement initiative to create a world-wide HR shared services center, improve efficiency, reduce costs and accelerate newe HR technology deployment [by others]: worldwide
Scope of Project:
- Employee selection [Hiring]
- HR consulting [Generalists]
- Compensation
- Benefits administration
- Expatriate administration
- Training
- Management development
- Payroll and Pension
Improvement Benefits:
- Operating cost 30%
- Annual savings $32M
- Head count 20%
- Break even point 3 mos.
- ROI (12 month) 5.0x
- Internal service levels 25%
Situation Analysis:
ClientCo, a global, money center bank with over $2 trillion in assets continually strives to improve operating performance across the 60 countries in which it operates. Senior executives within the ClientCo Human Resources organization sought major cost savings and service improvement in North America and Europe to coincide with its global deployment of PeopleSoft technology.
ClientCo internal teams worked for a year with a global technology integrator to both prepare for deployment and identify additional improvements across all major HR operating groups:
- Recruiting & Hiring
- HR Generalists
- Compensation
- Benefits Admin
- Training & Development
- Payroll & Pension
Although the technology deployment was on track, both senior management and internal team leaders felt that significantly more savings and service improvement were feasible.
Improvements Identified:
Within 8 weeks, The Lab’s wall-to-wall, template-based analysis of HR operations identified over 400 additional non-technology improvements. Roughly 85% of these were consolidated into a six month, self-funding implementation work plan targeting simultaneous cost reduction and increased business unit satisfaction. Examples:
- Recruiting and hiring - Numerous “one-off” procedures existed across multiple business units and locations, generating needless complexity, extending hiring cycles and causing cost variances exceeding 30% per hire.
- HR Generalists - Demands from business units varied significantly, were rarely documented and service level agreements were inconsistently implemented. Less than 40% of the Generalists possessed the skills needed to operate in such an ad hoc environment. Improvements helped stratify tasks, smooth demand patterns and increase business unit satisfaction.
- Compensation Plans - Prior acquisitions and high levels of business unit autonomy created a costly, needlessly complex set of over 140 separate compensation plans. Improvements standardized and consolidated common administrative tasks without revising the terms of the plans.
Overall Results:
The Lab helped ClientCo teams execute a six month implementation plan generating over $30 million in savings and increased business unit satisfaction levels by more than 25%.
