After the Fortune 500 company AEGON USA acquired Transamerica and several other insurance companies, their Information Technology Services division needed to consolidate overlapping facilities and redundant services. AEGON identified over 100 projects underway in different locales, but the project plans lacked clarity, and alignment with central strategies. Their geographically dispersed team members needed to collaborate, but their roles were unclear. Confusion and duplication of effort was obvious.
After analyzing the situation, we concluded that to achieve successful integration of the companies, greater attention had to be paid to cultural and people issues, in addition to the complex technical issues. Over a six-month period, we trained their top 120 staff members in our planning methods. They applied these tolls to align responsibilities and guided their teams in building action plans that linked with each other.
Multiple project teams were formed to implement plans that integrated the company's goals with one another. The team’s standardized software streamlined help desks, consolidated overlapping functions, and improved security. Due to their efforts, communications improved, costs dropped, and service availability increased.