Redefining Business Procedures After Rapid Growth

Challenge

A Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company was experiencing lengthy annual and project-based budget negotiations with its internal customers after a recent large-scale merger had driven international growth. A lack of communication across the organization’s various global sites and a resistance to change from key locations was only furthering the logjam. They needed to define a new methodology for customer cost allocations and implement a new model for estimating project efforts, tracking time, and reporting information to customers.

Approach: Think + Do

To overcome the internal communication obstacles, we created a project team comprised of key colleagues from each of the global locations. The team was then further divided into two work-streams to focus on a new Cost Allocation Methodology, and a Project Estimation and Time Tracking approach. We provided guidance and expertise in defining new best practice methods for performing necessary business functions while ensuring the final approaches led to a cohesive new overall approach to business operations.

Results

Acquis reduced the effort required for the annual budgeting process by 30%, developed a new, transparent and simple Excel-based methodology for allocating customer costs, eliminated the need for lengthy cost allocation negotiations, and reduced the effort required to estimate projects from 3-4 months to 2-3 weeks.