We are living in truly disruptive times, as digitization becomes the driving force in business and society. No sector or company has been immune to the change.
Introduction
In the past 25 years, the world has changed beyond all recognition. Geographic borders that once seemed immovable have been redrawn. Social habits that were previously taboo are now considered mainstream. Corporate giants that towered over their industry for decades have been sold off for parts. Today, disruption is the name of the game, largely fueled by technology and digital capabilities. Whether in the boardroom or the living room, our daily lives seem beset by uncertainty and complexity.
During these times, Kearney remains as committed as ever to increasing your company’s productivity. Our global reputation and capabilities in strategic transformation, combined with your people and our partners’ ecosystem, should equip you with everything your company needs to navigate a path through these uncertain time
This transformation guide offers you a glimpse at the many opportunities offered by digitization. Look through the chapters below to learn more about how Kearney is helping companies across the spectrum undergo a digital transformation.
Digital transformation
Our digital transformation ideas can help your company migrate from legacy to digital and adapt its innovation capabilities to continual change, while also boosting its efficiency and bottom-line results.
Every industrial revolution profoundly affects existing industries, in some cases destroying them, and gives rise to new business models. Yet today’s Fourth Industrial Revolution is unprecedented: competitive advantages erode quickly, often before you have time to react. Only those companies that are able to continually adapt to change will sustain their leadership position, and even survive, in the long term.
Facing stiff competition from online rivals, a traditional company integrated its in-store and online shopping experiences to better meet customers’ evolving demands.
Situation
A major automotive company was struggling under the weight of duplicate parts, overlapping systems, supply chain inefficiency, and inconsistency across channels—all of which were chipping away at the quality of the customer experience. Meanwhile, online retailers had raised the bar, and traditional rivals were adapting not only their store formats but also the online shopping experience.
Leadership quickly recognized that the company needed to take action and brought in A.T. Kearney to help redesign operations with a new focus on digital.
Approach
A.T. Kearney began by benchmarking the retailer’s performance with its industry peers and assessing consumer demands. Once the key development areas were identified, we partnered with the retailer to use advanced analytics and algorithms to develop and pilot commercial applications that meet customers’ needs. We also defined the core technology capabilities needed to support a superior customer experience and an evolving supply chain.
To quickly ramp up online sales, the retailer partnered with an online company in a new model of business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) e-commerce. The retailer also developed a new in-store experience based on expert support, in line with store formats of leading technology consumer brands.
Impact and advantage
Integrating in-store sales with e-commerce creates a frictionless shopping experience for consumers while also giving the company a 360-degree customer view by aggregating data from all channels. A new, more flexible technology landscape and integrated data architecture are now supporting advanced analytics to further improve the customer experience. With an enhanced customer experience and streamlined operations, revenues have increased, and customer satisfaction and retention have improved. In addition, the company has lowered its distribution and inventory costs and reduced its risk of overstocking or understocking items in stores. The simplified landscape reduced the company’s operating costs, and the company’s C-suite saw the results. The experience brought to life how digital innovation can make a transformational impact on our business,” the company’s CEO said.
Our Operational transformation ideas can help you reconfigure your organization and operating model, avoid value leakage, and ensure operational control in day-to-day execution, guiding you on a multiyear journey to both enhance your competitiveness and improve your financials.
Today’s maddeningly disruptive business environment has forced many companies to embark on their own transformation journey. If your company needs structural performance improvement to remain competitive—maybe even to survive—Kearney can help. After all, strong execution is more important than even the most “perfect” strategy.
Kearney is the global leader in business efficiency transformation. We have written the book on how to make companies more competitive by taking their procurement, logistics, manufacturing, and capital management processes to the leading edge. Our philosophy? Benchmarks are for followers; leaders are ruthless with their competitors.
Today’s business world is not for the faint of heart. Its competitive forces demand that you boldly break down barriers to collaborate with your customers, suppliers, and people within your organization. How can your company survive? By ruthlessly redefining its entire cost base—not just once, but continually—to stay ahead of a world in transformation.
+1 / One last idea
Again and again, companies around the world destroy value. In some cases, this could be because their CEOs pushed the transformation aside in favor of pursuing business-as-usual execution, which typically dominates more than 80 percent of a CEO’s share of mind.
A.T. Kearney has extensive expertise in data science and applied functional analytics
A.T. Kearney passionately believes in the huge opportunities that new technologies and advanced analytics present. Across the world, they are enhancing customer interfaces, revolutionizing operating models, and offering distinctive value propositions, not to mention disrupting entire business models in many industries.
The data scientists at A.T. Kearney Analytics Solutions are well-versed in areas such as big data, optimization science, unstructured text data mining, visual analytics, and business intelligence. The knowledge gleaned from our scientists has helped multiple companies to improve in the fields of procurement, supply chain, and growth and marketing— and provided them with a competitive edge.
Analytics Solutions Portfolio—Examples
- Analytics Transformation — Develops the capabilities and operating models your company needs to become an analytically powered organization
- Analytics Capability Diagnostic and Transformation
- LEAP Assessment and Analytics IQ Check
- Data Science Lab
- Procurement Analytics — Uses advanced analytics to optimize sourcing value and create durable supply advantage
- Spend Analytics
- Cost Regression Analysis
- Collaborative Optimization
- Crowdsourced Network Optimization
- Purchasing Performance Management
- Supply Chain Analytics — Increases supply chain efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency by making use of advanced modeling and simulation techniques
- Network Modeling
- Value Chain Optimization
- Predictive Maintenance
- Inventory Modeling
- Complexity Management / Design-to-Cost
- Growth and Marketing Analytics — Leverages data analytics to generate more predictive market insights and customized consumer interactions
- Growth Analytics
- Micro Marketing
- Retail Category Improvement
- Pricing Analytics
- Social Media Analytics
Data Science Capabilities
- Big Data Analytics
- Text Analytics and Unstructured Data Mining
- Optimization, Simulation, and Decision Sciences
- Business Intelligence
- Visual Analytics
A.T. Kearney is the global leader in consulting for digital, operations, and efficiency transformation
It’s in our DNA to provide clients with the best ideas, teams, and technological tool kits to develop effective solutions to complex situations and business opportunities. The pillars of our distinctive knowledge base and high-impact delivery are our Centers of Excellence in Procurement, Manufacturing, Analytics, and Digital. These specialized Centers of Excellence operationalize our ideas on the ground to provide value quickly to our clients. Our specialists operate globally, already represent 15 percent of our consultants, and will double in number in the coming years.
Procurement
- 350+ dedicated practitioners, organized in category-specific knowledge areas
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Mastering digital technologies to maximize value from category management (spend analytics, e-negotiations, expressive bidding, performance management)
Analytics
- More than 150 full-time practitioners, focusing on game-changing analytics solutions
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Fueled by best-of-breed technology and applied data science techniques
Digital
- Dedicated specialists with digital and IT capabilities, supporting our industry and service practices
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Focused on the implications and transformational impact of advanced technologies on current and future business models
Manufacturing
- Over 70 shop-floor and Industry 4.0 specialists focusing on operational excellence and network optimization
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Developing the Future of Manufacturing vision for the World Economic Forum