eCommerce

The Client

The client, one of the world’s largest financial services companies, provides credit card, banking, insurance, and investment services to clients in nearly 100 countries. The company’s core income exceeds $2.6 billion.

The Challenge

The client’s chairman asked its Global Cash and Trade Organization to determine the implications of eCommerce on its global business and generate a recommendation for the company’s approach to global eCommerce efforts. The client, an established financial services leader, found itself facing increased competition and a growing number of customers seeking services on a global basis. To date, the company’s eCommerce efforts have been fragmented and the client needed a unified vision in order to rationalize the sizable investments required to be a global leader in the Internet space.

The client realized that it needed to work with its senior leaders to generate the vision that would guide its business efforts and investments over the next two to three years. Because BearingPoint could bring a proven method for working with senior executives to generate eCommerce strategies for financial services organizations, the client asked the firm to lead its strategy development efforts.

The Solution

BearingPoint’s engagement team gathered 45 senior executives from the client’s global organization together for 5 weeks. During that time, the team led the client in the development of an eCommerce vision and strategy, an increase in eCommerce training and awareness, and the generation of opportunities. Specifically, the team managed the following:

• Brainstorming workshops and interviews with the executives.
• Visiting sites to see how other eCommerce organizations work.
• Conducting a series of workshops that enabled the client team to develop opportunities, then leverage selected opportunities to establish a mission statement and define its roles within the global eCommerce space.
• Developing a framework for evaluating competitors, alliances, and the technology needed to realize the newly developed vision.
• Recommending critical organizational components to support eCommerce including an eCommerce council for strategy, knowledge management, alliances, and venture capital.
• Managing a series of workshops exploring ways for these senior leaders to drive change within their organizations, and providing advice and next steps for getting the most from the strategy session.

The Benefits

Guided by the BearingPoint team, the client articulated an agreed-upon mission statement and identified more than 100 tangible opportunities for generating revenue through the Internet. The team also helped pinpoint the best of those opportunities and generate strategies for seizing them.

In addition to facilitating the development of an eCommerce strategy, the BearingPoint team’s efforts also created excitement about the Internet and left the client with 45 evangelists for taking the new mission, strategy, and knowledge back to their lines of business. The project also resulted in cross-organizational benefits, such as collaboration among leaders who do not usually interact, and an increased understanding of the importance of managing and sharing knowledge throughout the organization.