Harnessing data to drive £20m of in-year savings
A major building products supplier was looking to achieve sustainable performance improvements using its existing data assets but did not know where to start. Oaklin was engaged to develop a data analytics strategy, roadmap, implementation plan, and associated business case.
"Oaklin were engaged to develop a data analytics strategy, roadmap, implementation plan, and associated business case."
Case Study
An international building supplies and servicing group was in the midst of a transformation programme to bring several disparate brands into a single brand. As part of this transformation the organisation wanted to understand if data could be better used to provide improved business insights to drive decision making during the transformation.
It was recognised that accurate data and business performance information was currently not readily available to the senior leadership team. In addition, existing reports often created by Finance were confusing, inconsistent and had eroded the businesses confidence in harnessing data driven insights.
Oaklin were engaged to develop a data analytics strategy, roadmap, implementation plan, and associated business case. The project ran two workstreams. One focused on interviewing the leadership team and wider business to define requirements. The other focused on a deep data set appraisal. Both streams ran in parallel to ensure business priorities were linked to proof of concept options.
Another factor during this engagement was assessing how to accommodate people change considerations associated with the new data analytics strategy. In particular, this involved considering the ability of the organisation to absorb additional change at a time when other initiatives were taking place.
Oaklin quickly ascertained priority areas for intervention and delivered evidenced insights which exceeded the clients’ expectations in terms of in-year financial benefits. Additionally, Oaklin designed the new analytics strategy with the people side of change firmly in mind. Oaklin delivered a compelling vision of the future, case for analytics, and a structured change management plan, all of which were adopted.
On top of this Oaklin added identified over £20 million of in-year savings to the bottom line, effectively improving the speed in which the transformation programme could be delivered.
