Building consistent governance and HR data for global business delivery

The programme was being delivered under significant time pressure, with immovable deadlines driven by commitments made by the new CEO both internally and communicated to the external market. If efficiencies were not realised there was a risk of negative market sentiment and escalating overheads impacting the customers’ ability to deliver its strategic plan.

The delivery environment across Supply Chain was highly complex, covering multiple functions in every country it operates in. Historically the organisation has struggled to deliver fully on programmes of this scale with data quality, communication, complex stakeholder landscape and limited tools to support progress monitoring and governance.

Also, target organisation designs and timescales for employee consultations and role closures had been put in place in a shorter timescale than would be expected for such a dramatic impact on organisation and people. Plans were based on assumptions that had not been fully verified which meant that timescales and designs were changing daily with no Supply Chain focused governance in place, particularly change control.

Our customer put in place a well-resourced central team to support and manage the full programme, covering all in scope functions. Recognising both the lack of support the central programme would be able to give to Supply Chain, and the complexity of the Supply Chain sub-programme (multiple business cases, matrix of regions and functions, global organisation, scale of change), leadership requested Project One’s support to set up and run a separate PMO to drive successful implementation.

Working in conjunction with the Programme Director, Project One designed and implemented PMO capabilities to track, report and govern the 12-month implementation. To facilitate accurate and timely reporting the Supply Chain PMO agreed a service catalogue and single point of contact with the central programme team. This ensured the provision of monthly data to support progress monitoring, along with a clear route for day-to-day enquiries.

The key challenges we needed to overcome were:

• The organisation did not have tooling in place beyond Microsoft Excel, so simple and effective were the principles that drove the governance

• Unfortunately the data in the HR systems was of low quality and this, alongside the lack of understanding / buy-in to the target design, drove a large amount of change – to both plans and design

• The global scope of the programme required regular communication flows to monitor progress, understand issues and follow-up actions. Local teams were aligned to the 14 business cases and a monthly governance cadence introduced. To avoid misunderstandings, regular calls were used to review performance, manage change and agree messaging for senior leaders

• Initial data quality within local and organisation HR systems was of low quality – time was spent improving and cleansing to remove noise and enable teams to focus on the right areas.

Through introducing close control and tracking of delivery plans, the Supply Chain function delivered savings ahead of plan accelerating benefits originally planned for 2026. The tight control of change and timely decision making kept business case benefits intact.

Securing a single point of contact in the overall programme office enabled us to agree clear service levels for the provision of data to support tracking and reporting. Creating a more positive working relationship with this team allowed Supply Chain to raise and resolve incorrect assumptions and principles, this supported proper accounting of savings and changes to plans.

The introduction of a regular governance cadence provided sponsors and leadership with quality, actionable insight along with assurance on delivery progress. This provided comfort to senior sponsors and enabled targeted interventions to unblock issues alongside information to support updates to executives and business group leaders.

The organisation and detailed documentation, maintained by the Supply Chain PMO, also provided a clear trail for both external and internal auditors.

Project One value Add:

Our customer needed:

• Expertise in delivering change programmes across multiple geographies

• Practical, proven experience setting up and running a PMO on a global scale.

What was not required was:

• A theoretical mindset and

• Reams of templates, particularly given the time pressures to organise and deliver valuable insight.

Project One was able to provide:

• Experience with an understanding of the function, how it operates and the key stakeholders involved

• An ability to operate across different cultures

• Skills to both work in the detail and translate this into actionable insight and data for senior leaders.

Providing clear reporting backed up by detailed data within two weeks of secured support for the PMO to implement a standard governance approach – early confidence building.

Feedback indicated that we were different to competitors in a couple of valued areas:

• Part of the team and a trusted partner which resulted in greater cooperation from the wider programme organisation

• Always had the back of our sponsor and programme director – communication and alignment, particularly before any bad news