Innovation at Scale: Transforming Logistics for the Future

The Client

The client is a fortune 500 company, the largest global pure-play contract logistics company specialising in outsourced supply chains and reverse logistics for blue-chip customers. They are renowned for their cutting-edge warehousing and distribution services, designing, managing, and optimising supply chains, to deliver customised, tech-enabled solutions at scale to the world’s most successful companies.  

Operating in 27 countries, with 869 locations, 208 million sq. ft of warehouse space, and approximately 94,000 employees. Full-year revenue of $9.8 billion.

The Challenge

At the Capital Market Day on 12 January 2023, shareholders were presented with an aggressive growth agenda targeting $17 billion, organic growth of 8-12%, and the generation of $60M in central efficiencies by 2027. To achieve these goals, leveraging global economies of scale was imperative. This required identifying a strategic Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) partner to support global optimisation, centralise functions, standardise operating structures, and streamline end-to-end processes, and roles. The organisation had expanded organically through multiple acquisitions, resulting in an immature, inefficient, and fragmented structure with varying operational practices. The cultural and operational differences across regions further complicated decision-making, with numerous regional and functional requests for proposals (RFPs) and conflicting vendor selections.

The Executive Leadership Team lacked global alignment, with differing drivers, perspectives, and future expectations. Recognising the need for external BPO expertise from inception, the organisation sought leadership to ensure a successful outcome.

The Solution

• Established an aligned Enterprise Organisation with centralised global operational decision-making.
• Cultivated an Executive Leadership Team fostering a global mindset, collaborative work practices, efficient decision-making, and effective communication. Implemented a structured Executive Leadership Steering Group with defined approaches, governance, reporting mechanisms, and work methods to communicate enterprise-level decisions, dependencies, and ensure consistent understanding of the impacts of change and support required.
• Conducted end-to-end UK&I & European Regional RFP for the Enterprise Business Process Outsourcing (Finance, HR, IT, Operations), including vendor relationship and management, procurement, and legal elements.
• Built an enterprise strategy, approach and structure for PMO and business change to drive consistency across the multiple programmes.
   

The Results

• Presented the Executive Leadership Team with two vendor commercial propositions and business case outcomes from the RFP BPO process, offering strategically alignment and credible alternatives.
• Approved a single strategic partner for the business process outsourcing across all regions, along with a global strategy and organisational structure for engagement, implementation, communication, and governance.
• Estimated deal size for the UK&I & European Regions ONLY: 1,130, FTEs Scope $100M, with projected business case savings of $69M (excluding the AMAPAC Region & Global IT elements).
• Obtained Board and Executive Leadership Team approval for a Global Master Service Provider agreement spanning a 5-year period, contributing to the achievement of the $60M global efficiency target by 2027.
• Approval was also secured for the Enterprise BPO roadmap and high-level plans involving all impacted parties.

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