An Energy and Chemical Company Rebuilds Its Technology Foundation

Outdated enterprise technology had become a serious obstacle to the bold ambitions of our client, a large energy and chemical company. EnergyCo* decided to invest in a new, state-of-the-art ERP platform and turned to us for help in overhauling its technological architecture.

Over the course of 16 months, we helped EnergyCo modernize its ERP strategy, design a multiyear cloud migration strategy that has already begun, and redesign its technology operating model to better align business and technology. These changes identified ways for EnergyCo to eliminate about 20% of its applications over time while developing new data and analytics capabilities.

The first step in the journey was helping EnergyCo rationalize the vast and discordant series of ERP instances it had installed over the previous decades. This landscape had led to a costly maintenance burden and incompatible data sets that could only be reconciled through manual processes. Unifying this ERP architecture enabled EnergyCo to more quickly deploy and innovate its digital products at scale.

Simultaneously, we helped EnergyCo reimagine its technology operating model, defining a future-state organizational structure that includes new job descriptions for future-state roles and clearly defined decision rights across the organization. The company expects a cost savings of 20% to 30% once the redesigned tech function is fully implemented.

Part of this work entailed introducing EnergyCo to modern ways of working such as Agile and product-focused development methodologies pioneered by leading digital companies. Our workshops and training sessions helped EnergyCo’s talent embrace DevOps, a methodology of continuous building and improving IT capabilities that emphasizes cocreation rather than sequestering IT workers in long projects that risk failure.

By the close of a four-month engagement EnergyCo had harmonized its technology function with its business strategy. A clear decision tree guided all future architecture investments, and a formalized approach to data capture gave EnergyCo the ability to seize new opportunities through the use of advanced analytics.