Change Managing a Global Manufacturer’s Offshoring and Workforce Reduction
Problem
Looking to reduce back-office costs, a global manufacturer opted to offshore several key accounting functions—including Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and General Ledger—which required new processes and resulted in workforce reductions.
Such impactful transformation necessitated deliberate and significant change management mobilization, specifically change readiness and impact analysis, workflow analysis, comms development, and sensitivity management. Having already selected a major global offshore partner, the manufacturer brought in Excelerate to ensure a smooth initial transition and well managed change.
Approach
Coming on board only a few months before the transition went live, Excelerate hit the ground running, meeting with stakeholders to understand and map readiness, pain points, and concerns, while analyzing the inventory of changes. This enabled effective prioritization and tracking for the functions being offshored, positioning the client to stay on its implementation schedule. Excelerate additionally worked with the offshore vendor to analyze current and future workflows to prepare them for the transition.
From its readiness assessments, Excelerate further helped develop an effective employee-facing comms strategy, drafting messages that went directly to employees regarding workforce reduction, and even sitting in on meetings in which the impacted employees received notice. Through this comms plan, Excelerate helped the client prepare for challenging conversations in a thoughtful and sensitive manner that addressed concerns and pain points.
Results
Excelerate entered the transformation project long after it had begun, with key decisions already made and the vendor already selected. By quickly getting up to speed and achieving forward momentum within a twelve-week engagement, Excelerate helped the client drive the implementation to its first major milestone, and left the client well situated for subsequent implementation waves.
Businesses do not take impactful decisions like offshoring lightly, understanding they will have far-reaching and potentially problematic implications if not managed properly. By bringing in Excelerate, this global manufacturer mitigated the risks often associated with large enterprise transformations.