Delivering wall-to-wall enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, driving business process changes to comply with regulations, and launching new operational capability could all have global reach. As such, when you need consistency and worldwide take-up – which global organisations often do – the challenges multiply.
In our experience, there are three factors – money, sponsorship and fit – that you must address upfront. Take them lightly and you're in for a long haul.
Where's the funding for your global programme?
Many organisations have issues around the right funding model
for their global programmes. Regional businesses with demanding
profit and loss targets sometimes resist investing in global
initiatives. A region with its own priority programmes, for
example, may believe these outweigh the global programme,
especially if the region's budget is constrained.
Most companies face this tug of war between central and regional
funding. It leads to the question, who should pay for large-scale
global programmes – the central office or the regions under
it? Central office may well decide to fund the programme, which
leads to another question: who's in charge of making sure
benefits to the regions also satisfy the global case?
To some extent, this depends on the programme itself. Is it
mandated by law? Are there economies to be gained through global
adoption? Is global capability and consistency part of the
strategic value proposition for the organisation? Answer
'yes' to any of these and you strengthen the case for
centralised funding.
In practice, though, it's often more nuanced, with budget and
benefits realisation moving between the central and regional
structures. For example, we work with a global consumer products business. It funds
development of global capability templates centrally. It expects
the regions to bear the cost to deploy these templates and to drive
benefits capture. But once deployed, the central office also
operates the capability via a global budget to unlock economies of
scale in centralised support. So the funding model follows the
operational focus.
What's clear, however, is that your funding model for global
programmes must be determined and positioned upfront.
Making provision for funding, unlocking the budgets and allocating accountability for benefits capture are vital.
Who is leading your global programme?
Linked to the money is sponsorship. If an initiative starts as a
global programme, it can be set up and governed centrally. That is,
if organisational accountabilities and decision-making processes
between the central and the regional offices are well understood.
But an initiative often starts in a specific locality; it achieves
some success and traction before it's considered globally. The
decision to extend these types of initiatives prompts certain
questions. Should executive sponsorship remain local, with those
who hold the experience of execution? Or should the knowledge and
sponsorship transfer to the centre?
The size of the organisation has a bearing here. If there are a
handful of operating companies that need coordinated sponsorship
around an initiative, then bespoke governance arrangements and
clear roles and responsibilities may be enough. If the organisation
operates in numerous countries across various regions, a more
centralised programme structure and execution capability is likely needed.
We worked with a global products company that wanted to embed a
sales and marketing analytics capability in more than 80 markets
worldwide. Although much of the analytics engine was common, each
market had its own data sources and processes governing how it
worked with customers, which needed customisation. To get the right
balance of global and regional ownership, we set up a global
steering group with strong regional market representation and a
common approach to deployment in each market. Deployment was driven
by a regional project lead, with support from a global project
manager to provide expertise and knowledge transfer.
Clear sponsorship and the right partnership between global and
regional leadership really do matter. You should identify and
address these issues upfront to get the resources you need for your
global programmes.
Does your global programme fit your local operating models?
Global programmes need to take into account the operating model
they will dock into, given that operating models may differ from one region to
another. Many factors will shape local operations – local
customs, third-party arrangements and customer preferences, for
example. So the way a programme is delivered in a particular region or country
may need to adjust. It might be that the organisation has a global
operating model design. Even so, our experience is that local
variation comes into play, and often for good reason. It's
important, therefore, that you consider these variations.
We worked with a leading global marketing services company that wanted a
consistent procurement function worldwide. It became clear that its
two largest regions had different visions of the target procurement
vision, operating model and desired technical platform. We proposed
the programme take a step back. This was to independently assess
the reasons for the divergence, understand what lay behind those
and see if common ground could be found.
In this case, regional stakeholders were able to align and unify
around a single vision for the procurement function. This then
enabled the programme to proceed to global platform selection and
subsequent implementation.
Local operating models must be taken into account when driving out
global solutions. If the existence of local variation is not
recognised, and overtly addressed, the likely outcome is that the
global solution is not adopted and hence benefits cannot be
realised.
Get your global programme off to a good start
Global programmes are tricky. They demand strong executive sponsorship combined with a clear vision and benefits case. Yet they must consider regional agendas, drivers and operating realities, too. When organisations fail to consider these elements upfront, the consequences are execution difficulties, turf wars and wasted resources. Of course, simply considering these factors won't guarantee successful outcomes, but it will improve your chances of getting there.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.