Case Study: Ford consolidates decision-making with global demand management
Company: The Ford Motor Company
Industry: Automotive
Size: Over 200,000 employees
The customer: making lives better through automotive leadership
Ford Motor Company introduced consumers to large-scale auto production over one hundred years ago. Now, in the midst of their most ambitious manufacturing expansion in 50 years, Ford continues to service the world with great products while they also invest in solving global challenges linked to economic development, energy security, and environmental sustainability.
The challenge: moving from distributed to consolidated decision-making
With eight global regions utilizing various processes and systems, Ford operated from a distributed decisioning model. To increase efficiency and transparency into Demand for their global IT Services, Ford decided to move toward a centrally consolidated model.
The solution: end-to-end demand management
Ford partnered with Rego Consulting to implement and/or support standard Idea, Project, Program, and Portfolio configurations for Demand Management. The deployment included the consolidation of multiple practices and systems into a single global process with one entry point.
Rego developed the solution to allow for incremental (ad-hoc) requests, the distribution of planned costs across multiple business units and regions, and significant reporting views.
The customizations allow Ford to aggregate and report on demand by business and work areas, and the new reporting views support bi-annual IT project review and approval (for projects over $1MM), annual planning, and five-year road mapping for each of Ford’s eight global regions.
To assist with change management, Rego also conducted significant training to support user adoption of the new tool and practice.
The benefits: a streamlined global process
Currently Ford is working to integrate the solutions listed above and migrate from a distributed decisioning model to a centrally consolidated model. With a portfolio the size of Ford’s, ranking all demand top to bottom, including in-flight projects, is a significant exercise.
Ford has engaged its management consulting partner to help with the strategy, and continues to partner with Rego for best practice consulting (experiential/practitioner and expert knowledge), tool consulting, and tool configuration, including an on-premise upgrade, innovative Agile Central integration, and alignment with strategy.
By working with Rego Consulting to establish a single global process for Demand Management, Ford is streamlining multiple practices and systems to increase efficiency, planning, and oversight.