Enabling Global Scale

Connecting the regional intelligence and value of a global company.

Context

A large Financial Services company with businesses scattered across the globe, each region with its own set of products and services, and in some cases a unique brand identity (you’ve seen this – U.S., Europe, APAC…), discovers that although they share common problems they have no easy way to leverage the best they each have to offer. So while one region may have invested heavily in an innovative breakthrough solution, other regions would unknowingly be struggling (at some cost) to continue to deal with the same problem. 

Approach

• Partnered with firm executive leadership to identify leaders from each region; individuals that set goals and drive strategy for their regional lines of business and functional groups (e.g. Retail, Institutional, Advisory; Product, Technology, Marketing, Legal, …).
• Brought this team of leaders together to find common ground, define their collective needs, develop a mission and objectives, and commit to working collaboratively to achieve them.
• Designed and instantiated a recurring global forum mixing both virtual and in-person activities. Established the regularity and the ritual of coming together six times a year with an annual in-person multi-day event, where together this global team of leaders were able to: 
  • Communicate, educate and share products, business plans, roadmaps and visions
  • Identify shared opportunities and how to act on them
  • Learn about and leverage emerging technologies and ways of working
  • Unleash their creativity and target their resources

Impact

• Efficiency and Scale: Technical and operational solutions developed for one region being applied by many; reduction of redundant investment; the delivery of globally scaling innovation.
• Organizational transformation: The development of an informed global perspective for each member, enabling effective cross-regional partnerships and the formation of global teams.
• Process evolution: The dissemination and adoption of best practices in solution delivery methodologies.
• Brand alignment:  Creation of digital style standards and guidelines illustrating their appropriate use; an informed position on when ‘local trumps global’ in digital experience.
• Culture shift:  A shift from seeing global partnership as a purely political endeavor to actively seeking out opportunities to solve common problems on a global scale.