The Chief Information Officer of a private consumer goods organization approached Sikich’s Business Transformation experts regarding a global HR application project.
Like many global organizations, the company didn’t have one singular HR solution in place. The landscape ranged from PeopleSoft to paper and pencil, and the systems weren’t integrated. The organization’s global HR information flow was slow and inaccurate, with no standards to develop and share metrics.
Although many areas of the organization were backed by technology, everything was locally-driven. It was the CIO’s goal to address the globalization of technology with our support.
Our team was engaged to provide ongoing project support over multiple phases and years of an implementation project. The unique requirement for the implementation was that countries outside of the U.S. would go-live first, and the U.S. would follow. This meant that relationship building and change management would be as critical as the functional and technical aspects of the implementation.
Our solution was to embed a full-time senior consultant on the project over the course of two years to play a critical leadership role. When the team traveled around the world, our consultant traveled with them as an extension of their core team. Our assistance in fostering relationships, promoting cultural awareness and defining requirements laid the groundwork for a successful outcome.
The business transformation team influenced the strategy development throughout the organization. The company’s team brought together representatives from each country and facilitated the harmonization of business processes to establish common practices while ensuring support for localization. Every team member from around the world contributed to evaluating the organizational, process, operational, technological and people-related changes required to achieve the shared vision.
Over the course of the project, our team provided in-depth insight and support from design through adoption. Through our involvement, we facilitated and empowered the globalization of the HR function by delivering the inaugural global HR application and fostering a cohesive team.
As challenges presented themselves, we addressed them head-on to identify shared solutions across four continents. The organization aimed to maintain equilibrium and pinpoint shared objectives that would align with both the people and business requirements.
The implementation challenged the global organization to learn and grow together to meet milestones and deliver on scope, budget and time. Interpersonal skills, adaptability, cultural respect and collaboration were required from beginning to end.
In the end, the organization achieved a groundbreaking milestone for the company: a unified global solution that not only revolutionized the HR function but also contributed to business success by providing precise, actionable metrics.
