# I. One-Ness

he challenge for many companies, global, local or glocal, is presenting themselves to customers as if they were one company. Such a presentation meets the need of customers who have this expectation (Baron & Harris, 2008  Meyer & Schwager, 2007). The idea of one-ness poses a significant challenge in diverse organizations. On the other hand, there is power in having one brand that represents a series of services. Collective brand power is a valuable asset (Arvidsson, 2005;Hatch & Rubin, 2006). These companies have one quality mantra, one service culture, and even a one-stop-shop where customers can select what they want. Challenges occur on the operational and culture side of the organization. Many initiatives to integrate businesses and consolidate the way employees work together have failed. Integrating processes in a global supply chain is challenging and capital intensive. And, efforts that are meant to unify and align employees are challenging in a dynamic business environment (McAdam && McCormack, 2001).

Integration efforts have been able to look at the functions of a company and align them towards a singular goal. In some cases, if the distinct parts do not have to be different, they can be consolidated. A consolidated organization can combine flexibility and strength. It takes less effort to produce an acceptable deliverable. A less fragmented organization can bend and twist to meet the changes in the environment. The strain from the need for adaptation is then distributed through the organization rather than being concentrated in one area where failure is more likely. Performance can Author: California Baptist University. e-mail: jbigley5163@gmail.com then be optimized as existing resident elasticity can be exploited (Gunasekaran, Lai, & Cheng, 2008; Gosling, Purvis, & Naim, 2010; Swafford, Ghosh, & Murthy, 2006).

Oneness can help a company dominate a market of interest or penetrate a new sector. It is nimble, even though it has the power of a large organization. The global supply chain gives it reach. Oneness was researched in this study using the context of a multinational organization with a country-spanning supply chain. A one-ness initiative was initiated to align the firm with opportunities for the continuous realization of growth synergies. The case company is a global value chain consisting of a few dozen locations, several on each continent. Regional companies have a degree of autonomy around their local markets, but some clients are multi-regional, and collaboration between units is needed to serve them globally. An issue in one location impacts the global relationship. Furthermore, global clients have initiated one-ness initiatives expecting the same results as the case company experienced. Vendors and industry organizations have done this as well. The case company is in a position where they are surrounded by entities that have already moved in this direction.

The case company's managers unanimously adopted a scalable organizational design that optimized decentralized collaboration while providing guidance over all functions. The strategy of the case company is to outperform competitors, exceed financial performance targets, and grow the company into addressable markets. Together with corporate guidance, functional leaders endeavor to expand the company's market presence through superior strategic positioning and operational excellence. Location leaders strive to position their businesses in attractive markets with sustainable growth, high earnings potential, and with low volatility. Innovation, a global network for production, world-class performance, and a leading technical capability drive the achievement of operational excellence. Product leaders leverage and develop cross-business synergies with product lines. Continuous alignment allows for the realization of efficient synergy, product performance, and knowledge sharing. Support leaders enable operational efficiencies through systems and infrastructure. Growth requires that systems be modified to meet new client needs. Increased throughout demands infrastructure capability. Infrastructure continuously evolves as older equipment achieves end-of-life. Additionally, when new workflows are built the may demand workflow capability changes.


# T

Client leaders have relationships with clients that may span multiple facilities or be just in one location. The responsibility of these leaders is to exploit the wallets of clients in the most profitable scenario possible. All of the functions in the organization are linked, requiring a high degree of collaboration for success.

The case company has an established and continuously evolving portfolio of products and services. Megatrends affect choices by clients and end users; however, it is necessary that the case company be proactive in development decisions to leverage as much of the product life -cycle as possible. Furthermore, megatrends, affect strategic decision making to optimize profitability potential in all business units. Operational excellence enhances the value of products and services and supports higher pricing than competitors. To a client the product quality is critical; however, the arrival of that product, as intended, to the right destination, through the correct method, in the right quantity, on time, and with an accurate invoice on time are also aspects of the overall product. The experience that the client had while ordering their last item will be their current impression of the company. This impression of service is a part of the product and influences the client to order again from the case company. People excellence focuses on human resource talent in use. The current and evolutionary level of talent guides recruiting, personal improvement plans, succession planning, and membership in the talent pool. Corporate excellence relates to best-in-class governance through direction and support.

The One-ness initiative was introduced to focus spreading excellence across locations while taking into consideration the overall scalability of the organization. It was not desirable to scale until the appropriate foundation was in place. Excellence in performance and entrepreneurship were already deeply established in the culture and continued to evolve. With this in place, there was an opportunity for the MNE to rapidly scale the organizational to achieve growth synergies. It was also an opportunity for the corporation to exploit further the one-ness that had already been accomplished in the case company. This initiative aims to promote profitable growth through a variety of sales strategies designed to increase market share, market coverage, and market differentiation. Products and services are designed to solve client problems regarding profitability.

The critical aspects of the business drove the strategic initiatives. Growth stagnation had settled in and the company's expansion opportunities needed to be exploited. The market was shifting and, it was important that the corporation was not left behind. The case company and the corporation operate within a market that has intense competition. Product commoditization occurred at a rampant pace, reducing life-cycle earning potential and the ROI on R&D investments. Competitors had strong growth aspirations and were willing to compromise price in order to acquire some of the addressable market. Additionally, some of the markets that the company operated in had become saturated and the life-cycle of some of the legacy, money-making products had peaked.

The company's clients became annoyed by the lack of coordination in sales and operational efforts. Not only were sales efforts uncoordinated, but clients were able to get one company location to give them better pricing than another. Internal price wars damaged rate structures and profitability potential. The company sales effort was restructured to include three aspects; (a) winning new customers, (b) harvesting as much as possible from existing customers across all product lines, and (c) managing service excellence. The objective of the first aspect was to penetrate existing customer silos and win new clients within each line of business. The intended accomplishment of the second was to expand revenue opportunities with clients with whom the company already had a relationship. In some cases a client silo had not been penetrated; however, the relationships with adjacent silos could be exploited to get into the new spend. Cross-selling initiatives were enabled by a client resource management system (CRM) that was deployed to record prospects in the sales funnel and lead sharing. Existing customers were experiencing rapid changes in a dynamic market. Clients were being restructured internally, the complexity of products was increasing dramatically, the security landscape was becoming significantly more intense, and disruptive technologies related to products and workflows were challenging existing paradigms. Clients were hungry to learn about these changes. It was necessary that the company help its clients deal with their revenue challenges through products and services. They demanded solutions and advice, and this needed to be given by one voice without conflicting information. The company could leverage this strategic concept and the opportunity to increase its value to clients and to shareholders.

The case company leveraged integrative mechanisms to promote its one-ness initiative. A strategic leadership team made up of leaders was given the task. Spreading products across locations was a quick win, it made sense to start with this team. This team had executive sponsorship and support. Each of the leaders had extensive experience in the industry and was well connected. Similarly, the executive sponsor was also well connected and had purview over a significant domain of support and operational areas such that the one-ness initiative could be realized. It was believed that when the company experienced one-ness internally that this could be seen and leveraged externally through sales initiatives. It was also believed that if one-ness was not achieved internally that end-to-end sales initiatives would be very challenging to implement, as these initiatives demanded a one-ness in execution to be profitable and sellable.


# II. Quality of the Research

Creswell (2014) describes validity in qualitative research as being the determination of whether the findings are accurate from the standpoint of the author, the participant, and the readers of an account. In this case, language and meaning are the data. Creswell (2014), in parallel with Lincoln and Guba's (1985) approach, offers qualitative researchers eight possible strategies for checking the accuracy of findings; triangulation, member -checking, rich descriptions, clarification of bias, the use of discrepant information, prolonged time in the field, peer debriefing, and the use of an external auditor. The author selectively used these strategies to ensure data validity with a focus on triangulation, peer debriefing, and member checking.

Endogenous validity refers to the validity of established causal relationships (Yin, 1994;Lamnek, 1995) or the internal logic of the research (Punch, 1998). By establishing a clear thematic focus that guided the case selection, abstracting and comparing, conducting peer reviews of causal relationships, and by having an open and comprehensive explanation building validity was achieved. A thematic focus was evident in a clear definition of an overarching research theme (cross-unit synergies), a narrowing research focus (operative synergies), and a specific research question (the sustainable realization of growth synergies leveraging a one-ness strategy) along with a compatible case selection in which the constructs of interest could be discovered. Continuous abstracting and comparing (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1996) occurred as the author continuously compared data sets to build higher order constructs, preliminary results to emerging data to confirm or refine results, and observed causal patterns within the existing literature. These comparisons improved the validity of causal relations (Yin, 1994). Peer reviews of causal relationships were discussed with research colleagues. Additional perspectives were captured and tested based on experience in the field. These additional perspectives also enabled the validation of internal consistency and theoretical relevance of the author's arguments. The final technique for internal validity was through the open and comprehensible building of explanations and causal relationships. The reader could reconstruct the causal relationship because of the way that the results were documented (Mayring, 1996). Openly, the author indicated initial ideas, deducted assumptions, and challenged potential inconsistencies.

Exogenous validity refers to the generalizability of research results critical for robust theory development (Sutton & Straw, 1995;Weick, 1995) and depends on the research approach (Yin, 1994). Single case study empirical findings are difficult to generalize. Yin (1994) emphasizes that case studies do not allow for statistical generalization. More specifically, it is difficult to make inferences about a population based on empirical data collected in a sample. While issues of generalizability from case studies are severe (Denzin, 1989;Yin, 1994), single-case studies are recognized to be substantial from an evolutionary perspective (Stake, 1995). Single case studies can also provide new ideas and new thinking paradigms. They can help modify existing theories by exposing gaps and helping to fill them. There are several facts about this study that support the author's conclusions that the findings and propositions will be at least somewhat generalizable. General theoretical relevance of the research can be confirmed as being present in existing literature (Eisenhardt, 1989). The findings were confirmed through consultation with participants, who are operationally capable with varied experience in the industry, suggesting the potential transferability of the claims. Finally, the findings were somewhat generalizable due to the continuous comparison of similarities and differences in case items across different levels of analysis.

Reliability refers to the possibility that researchers can replicate the research activity and produce the same findings (Eisenhardt, 1989;Yin, 1994). A challenge for this replication is the attribute of qualitative research, in that it is bound to the context in which it is conducted (Lamnek, 1995), including time. The reader can draw their own conclusions from reliable qualitative studies when sufficient information is presented (Yin, 1994). The author attempted to ensure reliability through the explicit disclosure of the research design, including a detailed description of the research process, case selection criteria, interview guide, and methods for collecting and analyzing empirical data.


# III. Data and Analysis

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research study, using Moustakas, (1994) modified van Kaam method, was to explore the real-time experiences of stakeholders, or coresearchers, as they lived and influenced events occurring around them. One-ness is an evolutionary experience (Freeman, 2000) that may involve exerting influence, letting go, and redirecting energy and attention (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003). This oneness also includes being present physically and mentally in daily life. Stakeholders have to anticipate events, make sense of existing environments, and exert influence over future trends. Weick (1995) suggests that sense-making is a retrospective cognitive process that explains unanticipated events. He also suggests that activities in a socially-created world both support and constrain action. Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (2005) later suggest that individuals form both assumptions and conscious anticipations of future events. By examining sense-making and the development of mental models through actual lived, shared experiences, this study captures the subjective processes that have been largely ignored in the context of the connection between organizational design and growth in a multiunit firm. Using the experience of stakeholders, the author presents a conceptualization of how individual participants in this study made sense of their lived experience. This sense-making was an ongoing process for participants as they refined their understanding of lived experiences and established new equilibriums.

Each section included individual textual descriptions as well as composite descriptions concisely oriented and illustrated in a theme map structure. Moustakas (1994) suggested that the integration of textual and structural descriptions into a composite description, such as a relational table, is a path for understanding the essence of an experience. The composite description is an intuitive and reflective integrative description of the meanings and essences of a phenomenon, of which the entire group of individuals is making sense. The participants create meaning through their awareness of the environment, reflection on their experiences, consultation with others, focused response to an inquiry, and iterative refinement to these inquiries.


# a) Coding

An interview protocol with specific questions oriented in a sequenced schema facilitated data collection. Volunteers were solicited as participants from a pool of leaders based on a willingness to share information about the transformation of the case company division. Each volunteer co-researcher participated in the changes personally. Following each question, the participants' response was determined to be linked to the question asked and was determined to be meaningful before continuing. An answer could trigger a clarifying question, or a question formed to solicit a more fulsome answer if needed. The additional information modified the answer and once again was determined to be fulsome or not. The data was added then to the data sheet and coded. Sub-code themes also emerged from the data and were grouped by code and sub-code. The data was surveyed by the author, who, due to personal experience, was able to apply an analysis for good (ANOG). To reduce the noise in the data and ensure completeness and clarity slight modifications were made as needed. These modifications were accomplished by consolidating like data points and simplifying others by stripping out noise and redundancy in the answers. The data was then resorted and generalized through categorizing. A pivottable was used to extract themes in the wording. The curated raw data was then posted in a table. In some cases most of the themes were unique, in which case a table was not used. From this data, dependencies, relationships, and the sequence of events were determined and organized into a theme relationship map. Occasionally the data collected appeared as though the participant was confused about the question. When this happened the author followed up with the participant and then added the newly acquired information to the raw data previously collected.

The raw data was collected from each participant for each data domain and sub-domain in the sequence in which it is presented to promote a progression of thought. Patterns that emerged in the data are presented as textural responses (what happened), structural responses (how did it happen), or composite descriptions (what the group experienced). Data was interpreted into theme patterns. These patterns became concise propositions or findings from the study. Data items that referred to individuals, functions, line of business, locations, systems, or company names were obfuscated, eliminated, or given a pseudonym. The propositions, or findings, were formed and listed numerically. Within each proposition, a two-word summary was formed along with a statement that sums up the finding. For example, a central theme, norm strategy, or trigger may have emerged from the data as a result of coding. This data could then be categorized or filtered through the constructs being discussed that may include the strategic frame, product strategies, or a narrowed scope as examples. These constructs were the beginning of the theme map, or the outermost layer. The layers could then be elaborated on by breaking the outermost layer into sub-layers until it was reasonable to stop. The theme map was created to better describe the themes in the data and to show relationships and sequences between unique data items.


# b) One-ness findings

The study began with the collection of 61 ways that the corporation was not experiencing one-ness. These ways are listed in the table below. A poll was used to collect this data, a root cause was determined, and a remedy for the lack of one-ness was listed. The 61 themes that emerged from the data do not create an exhaustive list; however, they begin the discussion about where the opportunity is concerning achieving one-ness and also briefly outlines some steps that can be taken to move in the right direction. As these steps are taken, and the gap is closed, they establish momentum for the evolutionary establishment of a oneness that clients will benefit from as the case company becomes a more effective solutions provider. Below, the 61 themes were broken down into 13 theme categories, including a description of the issue and the remedy, as collected from the participants.


# ? Knowledge Management

o The availability of training materials was limited.

They had not been established in a format that was fulsome and standardized. No mechanism was in place to make this information available to all locations. Clients expected that all of the company facilities would function similarly within the scope of a given set of tasks. When clients saw that the methods were different, they equated the company locations to being different vendors. This confusion made the end-to-end initiative much more difficult to sell. Internal locations wasted effort discovering and documenting processes that already had documentation. o A company university (MU) was created and implemented. It included a prescribed methodology and format for creating content. Curriculums were developed regarding processes that included a means for comprehension measurement. These materials, along with general documentation, were made available worldwide through a knowledge base that hosted the university and a single coordinator that administered the system.


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? Quality Management o The maturity of the quality system varied from BU to BU. The system included BU workflow reliability and the measurement of that reliability level. The measurement would have been possible if a rejection tracker had been available end-to-end. The client wants the vendor to process a project that is named. The project has a large number of deliverables in a variety of formats. Configurations throughout the global supply chain are subject to progressive invoicing and configuration yields. When a client wants to know what happened within a configuration, they could be talking to an isolated vendor, as there is a lack of uniformity in the rejection tracking and a corrective action process does not exist. Additionally, the ability to continuously improve the process is not uniform. o A quality management system was deployed to control the quality process in a centralized context. This system included a single document that outlines our quality strategy, a single document that records measurements regarding all process yields, documents that cover quality system principles, and documents that include work instructions and specifications against which operational quality are compared. o A robust and mature quality system existed but was not applied across the end-to-end supply chain. This gap is a force against the exploitation of this type of sales opportunity. The lack of a quality system implies that a culture of reliability, a standard for performance, a method for a quality system, and guiding documentation has been applied across the organization in an inconsistent way. This variability is visible when clients investigate issues encouraging a lack of confidence in the corporation' ability to perform the tasks that clients give to them. Subsequent orders may be diverted or reduced. o All business units in the corporation came under one quality management system (QMS). This system included a quality manual, quality system documents (QSDs), management review (MR), and work instructions (WIs). This system set the tone for quality performance regardless of the product or service. From a growth perspective, the quality manual influenced the introduction of new products, technologies, and expansions in capacity. The QSDs influenced aspects of the workflow that they applied to establishing a united quality approach regardless of location. The MR included a unified set of metrics for all like workflows. It included performance targets and corrective action information that would lead to the closing of the gap. The relative measure of performance encouraged a "push" or "pull" strategy for information flow. A business unit that was performing very well would share their knowledge and transfer talent if needed. The work instructions (WIs) documented how tasks were performed. These documents, made available worldwide, allowed all locations to standardize on best practices. Knowledge sharing accelerated performance improvements and allowed any location to perform tasks with a high degree of reliability quickly. o Various business units, some of which have similar workflows and products, did not have quality performance metrics. In some cases, the metrics existed but were different or were calculated differently. This lack of standardization made it difficult to assess performance levels and know where to apply energies for the mitigation of vulnerabilities. o The remedy was singular reporting through one management review. The review included metrics for all businesses, including their definition and the method of calculation. These metrics were applied across all applicable locations and workflows. They were used to assess where there was an opportunity for improvement. Quality performance was a significant market differentiator that led to the awarding of additional work from clients. Sensitive work products that had tight delivery requirements were especially sensitive. Once the client could count on the company because they were easy to work with, they would tend to award work even at higher prices. This trust was validated in client survey information. "Our jobs are made so much easier based on the performance delivered by this team." (CS67) Internal costs at the client were higher when they dealt with a vendor who could not "figure out" how to make difficult projects easy. This cost performance led to better profits due to higher price points.


# ? Asset Management

o A variety of divisional and sub-divisional groups managed logistics. Each group had a different perspective on how logistics should be managed.

The level of excellence also varied as they had not standardized best practices. When a client wanted to know where an asset was or how it was tracked, they received a variety of answers from locations within the same company. o The unification of practice came from organization integration. The leader was able to push practices worldwide to mitigate risk and vulnerability. The company was able to answer asset and logistics management questions in a singular way when a client RFP (request for proposal) was issued. This ability to answer consistently encouraged confidence in the established one-ness. The deployment of mature practices mitigated incidents


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A that otherwise would have discouraged clients from using the company's services. These practices mitigated cost, enabling better profitability as well. o Assets were stored in a myriad of locations. Each location was managed differently and was in a different state of integrity due to asset tracking. The physical environment in which the assets were kept also varied significantly, to the point where the condition of the facility could damage the asset. This damage could happen through water damage or a lack of temperature controls for example. When a client wanted to know where their assets were, they did not want to hear that their assets were scattered in different locations, some with asset tracking capability and others without. o The consolidation of locations into three worldwide regional storage locations helped to concentrate inventories. Cycle-counting practices assured the integrity of the inventory as seen by very high levels in count accuracies. If a client asked for an asset, it could be quickly located and made available. If the operation needed an asset, the same thing would happen. The consolidation of vaults reduced complexity and increased the ability for the vaults to serve internally to operations and externally to clients. The consolidation also helped with cost synergies, thereby reducing cost and improving profitability. o Assets are typically ingested or digitized, making them digitally available on storage when they are received. Access to digital storage is not provided to operations, slowing their ability to exploit the assets through availability. o Digital storage came under centralized control.

Previously, storage was isolated to business units and hoarded for spike capacity requirements. A shared solution increased utilization and made capacity available to all through sharing. When there was a spike, the storage was reconfigured temporarily to allow for the volume requirement. When capacity needs shrink, storage capacity was reduced. o Asset storage charges were applied to some clients but not to others. Assets were requested to be returned soon after their use when clients were charged for storage, their. Clients could take advantage of free secure storage for years when they were not charged for asset storage. The majority of the assets had not been touched in more than three years based on last movement aging reports. o Inconsistent rates for storage encourage less profitable behaviors due to storage costs. If storage was free, then clients were prone to use it, bloating inventories. They were not motivated to take their assets back, as this would transfer costs to them. The cost of storage eroded profitability possibilities.

A This issue is especially critical for a project that utilizes a large portion of the supply chain and extends beyond a single division. "A common system would go a long, long way towards unifying the different companies? all our disparate systems create inefficiencies and an inability to present a unified front to ourselves let alone the customers." (1NS146) o A system unification initiative led to a system consolidation roadmap. Operators were then able to go to one system to get the information that they needed. Their effort to enter information was reduced through data sharing. Asset configurations were shared rather than recreated. Clients who had access to the system experienced end-to-end transparency and ease of use. This complexity reduction accelerated workflow throughput and reduced system management and enhancement costs. o Many of the comments that emerged from the data related to systems. The ability to lead change is a core competency in an MNE (Burnes, 2004;Mitroff, 2001). Systems that impose workflow controls, track the progression of work, and provide data for review and analysis enable the monitoring of performance. Within the end-to-end supply chain, a variety of systems are in use. This usage may be due to acquisitions and a subsequent lack of integration. It may be due to unique requirements that triggered a development or purchase due to isolated perspectives. This usage may also be due to a lack of awareness that other systems exist that could perform the work. Regardless, disparate systems do not share information well, if at all, and organization evolution is slowed as a result. o A plan that reflected an assessment of systems in use and a roadmap for integration into a single ERP was developed. The plan included the cost savings associated with not having to maintain disparate systems, the cost that would have been incurred to benefit from additional features available already in the ERP, the financial benefit of these features, the training benefits, and workflow efficiency gains. These benefits resulted in a compelling basis to provide the additional labor to accomplish the integrations in the shortest amount of time possible. o The user interface, the structure that drives navigation, and the core database architecture is the basis for the system design. Customers see that all of the systems are variable as they are exposed to them. For example, core database architectures drive information required for the system to function.

A client would notice that a field array of data is required and repeatedly entered for the company. This effort is needed for work to be processed. This variability is due to a lack of an organization-wide standard suggesting that clients might experience similar issues if they were using multiple vendors. o With the consolidation of systems, the user interface (UI) was also standardized. The corporation did not assume that this user interface would be adequate for client usage. An assessment was done of client requests, as a result, and a development roadmap was executed to accomplish the changes to meet or exceed client expectations. In some cases the client was not sure what they would want. When this happened, the features that were already accomplished as a result of previous client feedback could be exploited. Repurposing features accelerated the accomplishment of meeting client expectations that were desired in their UI to the ERP system. o The ability to execute work may depend on the availability of equipment. Capital constraints may inhibit the ability of the organization to purchase needed capacity. On the other hand, the redeployment of existing equipment to the point-ofneed could increase utilization while accommodating demand. A complex global environment with significant volume variability typically needs a capacity planning system.

o A system that listed the inventory of all workflow equipment and the disposition of the equipment was deployed. The maintenance history and "runtime" was also listed such that the next interval for preventive maintenance could be known. This data produced capacity availability information through the inventory. This inventory was available to all locations. When a local business unit had the need for equipment or parts for their existing equipment, they were able to locate suitable components and request them. The system allowed for components to be moved only if they were required elsewhere. Consequently, a central storage facility was not needed. o Hardware viability is reflected in uptime measurement and output quality. Proactive maintenance driven by component failure predictability drives hardware performance metrics. Systems are needed to predict hardware life-cycles, track maintenance histories, identify parts inventories, and schedule downtime to avoid hardware outages that could influence delivery performance. A business unit may lead a client to believe that capacity is not available when the system is used inconsistently. Furthermore, a BU may be renting equipment that could be replaced by existing equipment that needs repair. Parts inventories are valuable when quick repairs are needed. Triggers for ordering or sending parts to other facilities that need them is also a requirement of the system. o The inventory system was used to pull parts and hardware into locations that had the need. The provision of on-demand capacity allowed businesses at various locations to accept work, rather than turn it away, because they were capable to increase capacity as needed. The system only worked if all locations participated by listing their inventory. The diagonal support function that manages equipment was able to work with each location to enter their inventory in the system. Additional support was given to the location if they did not have the capacity or the skill to enter the information. o The inability to monitor delivery systems promoted sub-optimal utilization of this capacity. In some cases, deliveries could not be made while the capacity to make deliveries was available elsewhere. An inability to be aware of current usage trends kept managers from knowing what was available and where the capacity constraints were. o The delivery function was centralized under a technical group that could train the delivery teams on optimal practices for shared resource utilization. Tools were made available so that capacity was known real-time. These changes allowed for flexibility and adaptability depending on demand.

As a result, the continuous stream of deliveries was seen as consistent and reliable both internally to departments and externally to clients. o Systems are useful in tracking licensing of software and support contracts. When licenses are not tracked and monitored, they can expire leading to penalties. Additionally, hardware may become unsupported, leading to a decision to get other equipment or bring support capability in-house. o All of the support contracts were entered into the equipment inventory system. Cost efficiency was optimized by determining which items would need to be supported in light of replacement component costs. Support for other items was not needed as parts were easily available and in-house capability to repair these components was also available. A model for regional maintenance was set up to assist with regional location maintenance needs. These locations kept parts inventories, performed repairs, executed preventive maintenance at all locations, and trained locations to troubleshoot and perform simple maintenance activities. o A sales system is beneficial to track leads and manage work through the sales funnel. A CRM is a typical system type to facilitate this. The system must be used uniformly to ensure that leads turn into revenue. This usage may be influenced by a willingness of the sales force to expose leads, the effectiveness of the system, the timeliness and accuracy of entries, and the design of the system. o A commission structure linked to the CRM was deployed. If the project was not in the CRM, it was not commissionable. The amount of the commission varied by project type. If it was new business, the commission was higher for example. If another person could assist with the closing of the deal, then the extra commission available was shared. This reward system drove collaborative behaviors, including lead sharing which accelerated the closing of the deal. o The end-to-end supply chain uses multiple systems to track work between business units. Customers are given the opportunity to track their work in these systems, they receive reports from these systems, and they have to integrate their new products or features into these systems. The multiple system environments are difficult for clients, as they need training and access to multiple database environments. They are challenged to create one report regarding the performance of the corporation. o After a development roadmap was achieved the ERP system became common along the supply chain. A performance report was available for each function in the supply chain. If a client wanted to know the results of key performance indicators (KPIs) they would only need to enter the date range and function in the workflow to have a report quickly displayed.

? Strategy o A strategic-planning coordinated capability was not in place. As a result, initiatives in one business unit would conflict with the initiatives in another. As an example, when work is transferred as cost reduction strategy the intended gain could be cancelled by a resultant loss. We often have development projects generated in some business units running at cross purposes. We should try to get some oversight into development, so we don't 're-create the wheel' or develop applications that directly oppose initiatives in other business units. (1NS148)

Externally, clients noticed and were asking for an improved relationship through strategic discussions.

We'd [like] to have the company serve as [a] technological thought leader as relates to our business. We'd also like to have more strategic discussions/ direction with the company team." (CS13) o Periodic strategic planning meetings were initiated.

The results were documented and used for follow up. Benefits of each were documented and used as a partial basis for prioritization. Action trackers were deployed in the form of weekly "huddles" to share information about status. In these huddles, awareness was created through questions to project leads. This awareness allowed for inclusion of critical participants that may not have been anticipated. It also gave business unit leaders information about deployment plans and status. o A trend was developing regarding the rapid commoditizing of pricing. This trend applied to new products and workflows as well. Clients were quickly involved in workflow and product design so that they could minimize prices, citing their involvement in the development. Additionally, they were able to cost out workflows based on legacy pricing structures and required that these structures be replicated into the new pricing plans. o A two-fold approach was used to counter this trend and ensure higher product introductory pricing. The first approach was that the company began to develop their products without direct client involvement. This strategy allowed for elevated pricing. The second strategy was that an R&D component was added to rate structures. In cases where commoditized line items were mandated, an R&D line item was added to reflect development costs with each product delivery. Before a collaborative initiative with the client was started, the cost was determined as well as the volume. The R&D cost per product was then allowed to be applied.

o Clients were able to see a singular design that was scalable and growth oriented. o The desire to discover synergies is constrained as business unit leaders put up barriers, disallowing transparency or investigation into potential synergistic integration. "Turf" is valued and drives behaviors of protection. This source of inertia keeps synergistic integrations from getting off the ground.

In the event that they do get off the ground, there will be those who will want the integration effort to fail so that the organization can return to the previously wasteful equilibrium. o Business unit leaders are more likely to offer up turf if they understand the strategy and subscribe to the overall vision of the organization. The self-interest of each location needed to be respected through a guided process that promoted organization


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A evolution. Leaders saw that a networked-production environment allowed them to improve the financial performance of their business. It allowed them to grow their businesses as well.


# "Merging (at a high level), service lines based on overall workflow / product? for [series of functional areas]." (1NS2-9)

o Skills and the tasks performed by human resources or hardware are redundant within the silos. Utilization may be high, but there may be an organization combination with altered methods or workflow and based on most effective practices that could be a super-additive when these resources are combined. This benefit may effectively promote growth. The exploitation of these super-additives may be constrained by isolated work cultures. o Skills were established and transferred worldwide through a centralized learning management system. This system included curriculums of training within functions. Anyone could learn how to use a system. This liberated learning and normalized methods allowing for continuous improvement from a common platform. Locations were, therefore, made capable to perform and acquire more work from clients, as they were now made capable. o If analyzed, it would be clear that there are product and service workflows that are redundant. These can be consolidated with the associated superadditives that produce profitability. There is a resistance to converge like functions due to turf protection and ego-based aspirations for "empire building" rather than profitability realization. The discovery of these opportunities often does not get off the ground. In the event that the discovery does happen and is made known, the plans for execution to create consolidation are often difficult to perform. o A synergy analysis was conducted by business type and location. Many locations have similar workflows. Also, businesses in the supply chain have similar workflows. This similarity was assessed and consolidation opportunities were included in centralized organizational designs. Increased utilization boosted profitability and capacity to accept more work. strategy that included periodicity, method, and audience. Leaders were transparent about the next steps that the organization would take. These actions may be uncomfortable to some, but the overall effect of having informed employees outweighed any negativity. The bias to overcommunicate turned out to be advantageous with good-willed employees. o The corporation had an established offshore location. This location had effective leadership and skilled employees. Some businesses took advantage of these capabilities while others preferred to keep their processes local. They cited that the offshore location was not able to perform functions targeted for off-loading. They said that the offshore location was not able to turn the work around quickly enough. The off-load location did not understand local needs and so could not do the work. o These deficiencies were remedied through shift configurations that allowed for 24-hour operations.

An always on initiative helped the offshore operation to understand the goal of how they should be perceived by the various operations. Teams at the offshore location were put on distribution lists that put them "in the know" immediately. It was as if the offshore person was sitting next to a location worker. Capabilities were made available to all offshore workers through a learning management system. Personnel exchanges allowed for local cultures to be learned. Representatives for each location were set up so that a single-point-ofcontact liaison relationship with the offshore location was possible. A collaborative environment was encouraged by one-on-one contact. The impact of this environment was better cost structures. These improved cost structures allowed for different pricing structures that promoted increased volumes and enhanced profitability. o Similar products and services did not have the influence of a single leader. This vacuum promoted variability in culture and practice. The results of this variability were seen in financial and reliability performance. In some isolated cases, performance was very good for a portion of the supply chain. The clients' view of performance in a supply chain relates to their experiences with the weakest link. A failure in one aspect of a workflow is a failure of the supply chain. Issues negatively influence the workflow cycle-time due to delays, rework, and resupplies. o The organization design has a product and service leadership provision. These leaders work collaboratively with each other vertically in the supply chain and horizontally within their lines of business across the geographical dimension. They flush out variability and enable the standardization on best practice by pushing policy uniformity, tools, system enhancements, and metrics for monitoring. o A side effect of a dysfunctional organization is the lack of a streamlined and effective escalation process. Business continuity and performance predictability are generally desired internal to the business and external to clients. While this condition is a panacea perspective, there are exceptions that occur. The nature of an intense, high-volume business with significant associated liabilities is that these exceptions tend to have significance.

There may be a single $30 delivery that is used politically to sink a $200 million deal. While all risks cannot be predicted and the best, most robust workflow cannot keep a single nonconformity from occurring, there is the need for both contingencies and exception management. When a reactive action is required, the organization needs to have the ability to escalate the exception to someone who can course-correct a delivery or a re-delivery to mitigate penalties and brand image tarnishing.

o A template was established and deployed worldwide for purposes of escalation. The familiarity of the design made it easy for everyone to know how it worked. Exception management was then accelerated as workers knew who to contact when they could not handle a situation. Clients noticed that issues were resolved more quickly. The resulting confidence encouraged increased work from the client. Sensitive work was assigned to the company because clients knew that the work would be accomplished on time and not stopped by issue resolution problems.


# ? Financial Functions

o The preparation of an invoice that is accurate and includes every possible billable line item with maximum value placed on time is a challenge for any organization. In some cases it seems like it is more difficult to invoice than to make the product.


# One of the biggest blockers (from my viewpoint) is the dysfunctional intercompany process that we are following... it takes my entire team 2 days at the end of every month to reconcile intercompany? that's nuts. If we add the time and resources that we are wasting invoicing each other -it really gets crazy. (1NS127)

An organization that delivers complex and individually unique products to many customers simultaneously is especially challenged. Adding to the complexity, when different organizations create invoices for various parts of the supply chain in isolation from other organizations, inconsistencies and errors are possible. The client will view this bi-product of a lack of centralized control as being similar to dealing with multiple vendors. This vendor choice scenario then negates the end-to-end strategy. o A product line manager was introduced. This role made it possible for a product line, in all of its variations, to be tracked through the supply chain. A single point of communication for the client inspired confidence. Frequent "executive summaries" promoted transparency and issue resolution. The product line manager was able to monitor billing line items for the product line to ensure a single representation of the financial cost of the product line. This single point of contact made it easy for the client to do their work with the company. o Accountability for financial performance mandates that those held responsible have feedback on the impact of their decisions over time. Periodic financial feedback needs to be aligned and timely.

The alignment of financial information includes report design aspects that allow for analysis and comprehension. Some of these aspects relate to time. For example, the capability to perform yearover-year (YoY) analysis across locations would suggest that the data is consistently constructed


# Global Journal of Management and Business Research

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and applicable over the time frames. Additionally, for those who are accountable, it would be expected that they would receive feedback on their decisions soon after the effect of their decisions was experienced by the organization. If this is not the case, the ability to accelerate progress in the right direction or course-correct away from a bad direction is slowed. o A single design for financial performance packages was deployed. This design promoted a consistent look of the documents from month to month. Once a P&L leader was trained on how to read it, they became much more aware of their financial performance. The financial packs reduced complexity and helped them to make quicker decisions. They also helped leaders to see the impact of their decisions, thereby enhancing profitability. o The construction of a P&L includes functional groupings and their associated costs and revenue. These groupings may not be optimal or practical.

The ability to understand performance by LOB would suggest that the functions that add value to a LOB workflow would be financially grouped in the P&L. Not understanding this performance leads to pricing inconsistencies that appear to the client as irrational.

There are huge challenges ? the largest from my perspective is due to our businesses all being on separate P&Ls. The business leads are being judged against that, and thus, need financial incentives to place the work where it makes sense.


# With pricing pressure being what it is, this location selection becomes even less lucrative as margins shrink further. (1NS139)

Internal competition can lead to a negotiation that hurts profits, as a client then asks for the lowest pricing for the same value-added activities but from different sources within the organization.

o Product LOB leaders gained access to financial information from all locations that produced the products that had been mapped to them. They were able to review the allocation of expenses and the organizational designs at all locations and make alignment corrections. They were able to increase organizational alignment to make sure that the right groupings of functions were organized within their associated lines of businesses worldwide. This reorganization also enabled performance monitoring and the use of comparative performance ratios. o A single customer may be billed using different methods or multiple template designs because deliverables came from many BUs at the company. These billing methods lead to inconsistent practices being deployed that may result in increased error rates. It may also lead to needless discussion around these inconsistencies so that the client can understand what the invoice is saying. o The client would prefer to have a similar looking invoice. This request suggests one-ness in the value chain. It ensures readability and reduces errors or confusion. A centralized billing department was used for the supply chain. This department led by a product leader pushed policies that promoted conformity to a single standard across all locations.

To the extent possible, a similar rate structure and strategy was used. In some cases the structure was driven by contractual documents. o The rate structure also applies to intercompany situations. A division in the supply chain may need a workflow output from another division to make a sale. This scenario becomes even more prevalent in an end-to-end scenario. Within the sale, the crossdivisional workflow element was priced and may be an isolated line item on an invoice. Intercompany rates typically are discounted against this line item and so the organization that performs the work and bears the cost does not experience the full revenue associated with the line item. Regardless of how the rates are structured, a lack of consistency and agreed to billing norms leads to needless negotiations with every project on what the internal rate is going to be. This wasted effort influences the internal behaviors about the desirability of the work and also delays the execution of the work, which subsequently delays its associated revenue. It may also lead the client to believe that the organization is not able to perform the work, leading to a reassignment. o The intercompany rate card was eliminated by consolidating P&L structures. The result was that the revenue received for the line item was fully experienced by the P&L. The transfer of funds between P&Ls, guided by the intercompany rate card, was eliminated. The effort and "research" when discrepancies occurred were eliminated. This, together with the centralized billing function for all functions, reduced cost. The centralized function also allowed for systemic enhancements to streamline processes going forward. o The silo environment does not encourage crossdivision revenue opportunities. Each division is measured independently and is not incentivized to provide revenue opportunities to upstream or downstream divisions. In some cases a division was working on a product that could be exploited vertically. These opportunities are lost due to a lack of collaboration. o The selling group and an operational group were connected that could make supply chain deals. They could also vertically expand a deal to benefit other divisions. A commission-based reward structure was associated with these deals to motivate the sales group, while bonuses motivated operation groups. o A dysfunctional rate structure, intercompany or across clients, leads to effort needed for research. The complexity brought on by variable rate structure designs and a lack of a common method, leads to inaccuracies applied to invoices. Training becomes more difficult and human performance inconsistency becomes more prevalent, leading to investigations and reconciliations. This research consumes capacity and increases the cost within the billing function and the operation. Customers then experience a delay in receiving their invoices. They may even indicate that one part of the supply chain is able to send invoices timely and accurately, while another section of the organization struggles. This situation is confusing and frustrating for clients.

The inability to invoice has led clients to move their work to, or away from, their vendors. o The centralized billing function was able to deploy a module in the ERP that standardized billing methods through the system design. Local nuances were accommodated for, while rate card designs were standardized so that the system could exploit them. Sales modified rates in the system when new contracts were won. Billing functions that could be automated were. Policy and commonality could be pushed through the system. Training on the use of the system was facilitated through the company's online university. o Unfair end-to-end pricing resulted when deals were made. Some businesses were used as loss leaders to make the deal. This hurt P&Ls that were used as part of the reward system, and so were protected. Giving some services away for free compromised the performance of business units and presented the image that they were unhealthy and subject to divestiture. o A methodology for the redistribution of revenue was deployed to avoid a perception of poor financial performance. The redistribution was related to the business unit total cost as a percentage of the overall cost associated with the project. o A dysfunctional intercompany process resulted in negotiations, some of which were achieved under duress, regarding internal pricing. The intent was to increase margins in the home business unit at the expense of the business unit that was offering services unavailable to the selling business unit. The inflated margins created line item targets for discounts. Clients wanted details of cost in the workflow at the line item level, leading to the discovery of opportunities for reductions. With this information they were able to reference market pricing for these line items. This situation left the business unit that provided internal services with a loss leader that was uncompensated for in the selling unit. Additional costs were associated with coordination, internal transfers, and internal invoicing. o The selling units became members of a single P&L structure where intercompany transfers were not needed. The P&L experienced the revenue and the cost was allocated. As a result all line items were justified against market pricing standards. o Revenue was lost due to the inconsistent choices of line items used in the invoicing process. This inconsistency led to the loss of revenue potential for services. Rate cards may not have provided adequate information about the rates that can be used. In this case line items would be consistently missed. o Revenue worksheets were set up in the ERP system to provide template-based invoices that referenced rate cards built into the system. All rate card structures were reviewed for fulsomeness. Automatic checks were built into the system such that any changes to the invoices outside of the template rate card needed approval prior to being sent out. o A client may receive multiple invoices on the same purchase order (PO) due to the segregation of functions in the value chain. The preference of the client is to receive one PO for all services in the value chain. This practice also reduces costs at the vendor site, as processes are consolidated and connected providing a general level of transparency. o The ERP system was used to prepare billing across the value chain in all supply chain services. As the ERP migrated vertically to business units, they were able to use automated billing and repurpose data that was populated once at the beginning of the project. This strategic usage of data saved time and met the clients' expectations. o The behaviors of the facilities were influenced by the fact that there was no "self-interest" policy. The effort expended to accomplish work that meets a client's expectations should be rewarded with revenue and profits that are part of the location's reward system. This reward motivates locations to accomplish the work with the least cost and the most value to clients. o A self-interest policy was created to reward locations that accomplish work in their local markets. This policy also influenced reward systems as they were designed with a strong local component to motivate leaders to exploit addressable markets within their reach. o In some cases rate structures were set up such that one business profited at the expense of another. These structures had already occurred in deals that were made. A concession in one area allowed another business to profit. Essentially the losing business was given a loss leader.


# Global Journal of Management and Business Research

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A o A policy related to the redistribution of funds was implemented. It was structured in accordance with an allocation policy that related to total costs in the loss-leading business unit. A monthly transfer was made based on the calculation. In this way, the cost burden was equalized across all participating businesses. o Every project had an aspect that was unique.

Consequently, a pricing structure was created around each project. To optimize profits, a pricing strategy to optimize profitability would have to be used. The strategy needed to include various techniques to optimize profitability. o Each deal was unique and so needed a unique pricing strategy. The techniques used to optimize profits in each deal came from an assortment of techniques that could be applied, such as seeking overages and up selling services. Every billable line item was considered. As an example, there was the opportunity to up sell other services to gain more revenue. A strategy may also include the inclusion of line items that were not previously considered. These line items are needed when other line items cannot adequately carry the cost of those not listed. o Rate card misalignment happened as the result of unique deal structures. Even so, treating every deal as a one-off resulted in the loss of opportunity to charge for other aspects of the project for which the client would have paid. This situation happens when the dealmaker does not understand what is valuable to the client. In addition, there are nuances to rate structures that are geographically driven. o The organizational structure includes geographic locations in the vertical dimension. An awareness of value in each location was determined. For example, one location may pay more for security than another that would consider it a barrier to entry. Product leaders were able to see how their pricing was handled by client and by location. This information allowed for discovery of line items that could be used, thereby optimizing alignment while allowing for customization.


# ? Continuous Improvement

o Some parts of the organization may have a structured continuous improvement process while other parts may not have one at all. However, not learning from failure encourages a repeat of that failure. This lack of learning is confusing for clients who want the corporation to learn from their mistakes. Typically a mistake will result in a penalty to both the vendor and the client. For example, the vendor will have the cost of the rework while the client may have to wait longer to get their product. This delay will impact schedules and lead to penalties. An inconsistent or incomplete application of the corrective action process may lead customers to believe that in some areas there is no hope of keeping issues from happening or reoccurring due to the significant existence of residual risk. o An analysis of all workflows was completed to understand what they were and where they were located. The quality system was then applied to these workflows in all locations. The quality system includes a robust corrective action process. An SLA on corrective action turnaround time was deployed and measured for compliance. All issues were logged in trackers and reflected in the management review that went to all executives. All investigations and corrective actions were reviewed by a single capable person.

? Leadership o While personalities of leaders and their leadership style will differ, clients want to see one-ness guided by a single set of values that drive behaviors. They want to see one culture driven by these values. They expect that these values drive performance that is predictable and desirable. o "When we see things (in our business unit or others) that seem to oppose this initiative, we need an agnostic escalation point that represents 'The case company' ... not just a slice of the company." (1NS150) o The lack of leadership conformity within BUs and at corporate suggests to clients that they cannot predict the behavior of leaders when they engage leadership at the corporation. o A vision and mission statement was made public by the corporation's leadership following significant discussion on the topic. Supplemental statements were made with regard to sub-aspects of the statements related to security, quality, and service levels to provide additional detail on responsibilities.

As the organization scaled, the culture driven by these statements was transferred to each additional business unit in the overall organization.


# ? Compensation System

o With the blending of business units through synergy exploitation or acquisition, there were anomalies in compensation systems. This included terms of employment and compensation amounts. This caused issues of compliance with payment bands and uneasiness among those within the bands due to a lack of conformity in a few instances. o The issue was resolved by extending the bands and adjusting the wages of the high-fliers. This change enabled those who were paid at lower rates to be pushed up further into the band and conversely, it pulled those outside of the band back into the range. The band creation regulated the hiring of new employees, including allowing for new employees at higher rates. This system was deployed to all business units and included regional nuances. o Performance in the business units was not linked to compensation. This disparity was partly due to a lack of a unified set of performance metrics. The metrics that existed had variations in the methods by which they were calculated. This variation prevented relative measurement and made it difficult to set targets that applied to all business units for like workflows. o A set of KPIs were created that were agreed to by business unit leads. These KPIs were defined including the methodology for calculating them. With this, it was the possible to set annual performance targets and target improvements. The results of the measurements are published monthly in the management review. The targets and their definitions are also published in "The Review." Updates to the materials were relatively easy, as leaders were trained on how to create and modify courses.

[Client] wants to leverage MU to help enable their people to perform tasks in [the] ERP as an example. This opportunity gives us the ability to measure comprehension through testing, the ability to evaluate test capability through the analysis of question success, the tracking of who has and who has not passed a test, etc. (1NS19) ? Recruiting Practices o The recruiting practices at each site varied according to local practice. While geographical nuances needed to be considered, many of the functions were similar worldwide. The lack of standardization on best practice inhibited the transferability of work. When this occurred there were excessive failures, diminishing confidence in the ability of the business unit to execute the work. In many cases the performance of the teams was directly related to getting other work. Poor performance influenced revenue and profits. In some cases penalties were assigned. o A process for recruiting was implemented to ensure the best candidate was awarded the job. This process was determined through preliminary knowledge testing and a structured interview process. The functional leaders were directly involved in interviews to make sure that the new employees were a good fit. A better fit also reduced attrition rates. The mix of full-time (FT) and freelance (FL) workers was also optimized.

? using operator skills in all places possible where they can be applied... informs our ability to consolidate activities across functions [including] labor type modeling that relates to the percentage of freelance staff as compared to full-time relative to the volatility of volume. (1NS45)

? Security Management o The assets that the corporation handles are not their own; they belong to clients. These assets are the "crown-jewels" of the clients. They have invested significant capital in these creative properties. The loss or leakage of these assets results in significant loss on this capital invested. Consequently, security management is paramount in this industry. A single breach could result in significant penalties and financial loss. Clients expect that when they review the security management in any division of the corporation, that they will see similar leadership, culture, and controls. When this is not the case, they lose confidence that a security breach will not happen and they award the work elsewhere. This award system is a barrier for entry in many cases. o A unified security approach was applied to all locations through a security management system. This system was used in all new locations. An internal assessment tool was made to assess the compliance status of each location. A centralized team supported the location to bring the new site up to company standards quickly. Local regulations were taken into consideration as part of the initiative. Ongoing assessments were completed through internal and external audits. Non-conformities were resolved through corrective action. A security standard was constantly updated to reflect the last threat mitigation controls. This standard informed the gap analysis. With each update, the gap analysis was used to ensure that all locations met all the controls, including the new ones. This gap closure also prevented drifted and accommodated new workflow introduction. In summary, the data suggests that the oneness initiative is critical for the growth strategy of the case company. In order for clients to entertain this strategy, they would have to see the competitive advantage from the one-ness factors that differentiated the company from a sequence of vendors in the clients' supply chain.

"


# [We established] customer decision maker alignment for product [that] lead to synergistic supply chain opportunities." (MS58)

The effort on the clients' side to manage a sequenced vendor chain would be significantly more than the one-ness alternative. An end-to-end proposition for services would eliminate handoffs, reduce order dwell time, and reduce the number of outputs needed. The following propositions summarize the key findings of this section:  (Organizational Recalibration): Organizations seeking one-ness must recalibrate their perspective on organizational design to enable or sustain profitable growth in an evolving market that embraces, or that already has embraced, the benefits of one-ness.

Proposition 15: (Knowledge Centralization): Knowledge management engages entrepreneurialism, producing new knowledge while unifying task knowledge through centralization, utilization, and influence. Proposition 16: (One Reliability): Clients expect a singular, high-reliability, performance experience in the value chain that is subject to a mature remediation process when infrequent non-conformities occur.

Proposition 17: (One Vault): Clients expect that their assets are available, locatable, and treated in a similarly excellent way, regardless of where they are in the endto-end vendor supply chain. Proposition 18: (One Infrastructure): Clients count on the reliability of the vendor supply chain workflows, which are dependent on the continuously available capability of each linked functional element. Proposition 19: (One Strategy): An end-to-end value chain must be aligned in purpose and destiny in order to realize synergistic growth.

Proposition 20: (Financial Information): Organization leaders benefit from timely, concise, and complete financial performance reviews that are linked to cost mitigations and the result of opportunity exploitation.


# IV. Conclusion

The research question seeks to understand the impact of one-ness on achieving growth synergies in an MNE. The one-ness "mega-initiative" helped create alignment through the division. This alignment is preparation for the further in-depth study of focused action and the organizational design discussed throughout the dissertation. The case company's leader introduced a program whereby the company would be positioned to appear to clients as though they were one company, without silos. Furthermore, this aligned the efforts of business unit leaders by implementing a mindset. Caution had to be taken to make sure that this mindset was not misapplied through behavior meant to achieve personal agendas or dilute accountability by installing organizational socialism. The initiative included a sequence of initial strategies that created product related collaboration between businesses. This resulted in the ongoing realization of growth synergies. The corporation had some strategic initiatives aimed at organic cross-unit growth, however, this was limited to cross-selling with the deteriorating effect of discounts for the personal purpose of gaining revenue-based, rather than profit-based, commissions on sales. The one-ness initiative was meant to accelerate organic growth for the sustainable realization of market share and penetration growth synergies. This was enacted by providing industry-specific, cross-unit solutions that supported increasing market share, coverage, and differentiation. Ultimately, the aim was to use the case company's products and services to solve customers' problems and create value opportunities that could be monetized.

The company overall collectively embraced one-ness to achieve growth synergies. For example, the consistently accurate use of a single ERP is an aligning platform that enables accountability for performance and synergistic growth through transparency. Furthermore, the rate at which enhancements, called out by stakeholders, are developed and deployed broadly relates to the growth rate of an enterprise that is successful in a moderately dynamic marketplace. One-ness is compromised when data is scattered and unavailable. With system capability and data consolidation, relevant information from across the supply chain is made available to leaders. The system allows organizational leaders to leverage known available network capacity across all locations to meet client expectations. The alignment of workflows exposes synergies that enable capacity pooling. This capacity management technique is helpful when there is demand variability, improving utilization and increasing profitability opportunity. Alignment is synergistic in this case, as existing workflows and infrastructure can be used to deliver new products and services to an adjacent, new, or similar market in a different geography. Augmenting alignment, standardization is a complexity -reduction technique that enhances scalability, capability, predictability, updatability, and transportability in a chaotic environment. Standardizing on best practice includes deploying a common language needed for more accurate profitability measurement and creating a platform for efficient organizational evolution. An optimized and appropriate methodology is needed to propagate best practices at the rate of absorptive capacity. Unification implies a single purpose and strategy for the business units that consider local addressable markets. The strategy for global deployment must also include consideration for change management momentum and the organization's capability to effectively deploy. The mission of product leaders is to exploit one-ness to achieve profitability and realize growth synergy.

Location leaders promote and benefit from oneness to achieve synergistic growth. They can reach out to nodes in the production network to capture needed capacity. Workflow alignment enhances profitability through the exploitation of geographically diverse but synergistic workflows based on best practice. A single set of meaningful and measurable goals need to be aligned with the firm's mission and vision. This promotes a common understanding of performance, allowing high performance workers to achieve success in an operation that is measured, monitored, and knowledge rich. At the beginning of the one-ness initiative, most businesses did not have a customer-centric view, as they had multiple customers that had their work spread over several locations. Additionally, they had come from either a legacy product-centric construct or a legacy client construct only. This challenged the multidimension design while illuminating opportunity. Over time, brand managers discovered white spots of valuecreating opportunity where a client business sector was untapped, where a client could be added, or where a location could add a product opportunity, etc. Managers realized over time that the white spots in their cross-unit portfolios disappeared. The sector migration brought in new opportunities that did not overly stretch the capabilities of the facilities. And, the increased competencies across business units led to the development of innovative offerings, expanding the company's portfolio and market potential. This one-ness promotes the sharing or redeployment of capacity, enabling the execution of large overcapacity orders that competitors are unable to execute. These would otherwise have been referred to another vendor or split between vendors. Work can be profitably assigned when available and capable capacity costs are understood and when supply chain leaders aggressively share their resources. A unified culture, the constitution of which is aligned with other locations, optimizes capacity utilization in a network-based production (NBP) schema. The product leader supports the production facility network through a supply chain mindset because it reduces carrying costs, enables the execution of high volume, and, therefore, mitigates capacity constraints. One-ness also applies to the global workflow management system. The timely availability of data from the system used similarly across all locations and which is offered up transparently, can accelerate strategic decision making and issue resolution. Alignment promotes collaborative evolution that leverages standardization as a platform for achieving and sustaining ongoing enhancements. For example, slight enhancements to workflows may enable the consolidation of workflows, improving their utilization and cost per deliverable. One-ness is further promoted through communication as the location leader is seen by location workers as the center point of internal and external communication.

One-ness augments the organization's ability to execute synergistic change. This unity is seen in consensus, consistency, and continuity. It is partly achieved through diversity of talent, tools, and processes. It is guided by a holistic vision that includes a detailed organizational design built for achieving client requirements and encouraging a collaborative social environment necessary for profitable growth realization. The dichotomy of a decentralized yet collaborative network can be agile as it adapts and constantly seeks a new equilibrium in a dynamic market. A guided autonomy, driven by self-interest and augmented by resource complementarity in a NBP environment, accelerates the process of achieving profitable growth. Profitable growth is reflected by the nature of the new equilibrium. The new state may include common and effective policies that accommodate critical concerns from stakeholders and drive behaviors that lead to profitable growth. The continuous achievement of temporary equilibrium is augmented by the corporate center. It is a service center that can contribute to continuous growth by temporarily incubating growth opportunities, by sharing related resources between businesses and by helping business units to select initiatives based on the long-term strategic plan for the firm.

Collaboration intrinsically channels focus and promotes a one, or singular, perspective. This perspective is brought into unity when existing knowledge is consolidated and made available. A holistic awareness can be used as an advanced starting point, or platform, for new discoveries. Furthermore, awareness and collaboration encourage fluid resource sharing without boundaries. Consequently, the right resources are quickly attracted to issues whose resolution contributes to profitability potential. An example is the resolution of a standardized and appropriate cost allocation methodology that creates predictable financial performance and allows for profitproducing trend monitoring. Organization leaders must be able to resolve issues through a mindset that includes a one-ness perspective that is understood by all.

Lateral integrative mechanisms (LIMs) (Persson, 2006) also promote one-ness by their design. They are synergistic, as they connect organization dimensions in meaningful ways through common interests. Further to this, collaborative structures are required for the coordination and enhancement of cross-business collaboration in an evolving synergistic growth environment. For example, cultural activities help these dimensions establish and mature a collaborative mindset in a complex environment. Additionally, leaders benefit from access to meaningful and relevant tacit knowledge and domain experience that can be used to accelerate growth-oriented decision making. The dynamic nature of the LIM makes it an ideal on-demand construct to help propagate a one-ness perspective.

Selected actions, when focused, promote alignment and unity. Specifically, an organization can drive synergistic focused action, that when exploited can realize dynamic scaling, including expansion, consolidation, the integration of business units, and a competitive advantage. The energy consumption needed to accomplish patching, or other focused action, in an organization that is aligned to realize local synergistic opportunity is minimized. This is because an organization is intrinsically and efficiently aligned. The structure is connected and tasks are shared by relevant functions needed to achieve growth synergies. The relevant sequence of tasks are quickly discovered and effectively executed. This can lead to mutual benefit between business units that collaborate.

Corporate promotes one-ness as a complexitymitigation technique. When it is embraced by corporate and business units alike, it accelerates profitable growth because it is a suitable platform on which growth can more easily take place. Corporate helps business units connect with other business units that have achieved synergistic capabilities that could be exploited. Conversely, the effort needed to achieve revenue realization from a client that requires one-ness is significantly more difficult if internal business do not embrace the alignment vision. Furthermore, a fragmented MNE cannot easily solve client issues that relate to one-ness, as they do not understand the root causes of the problems. Corporate can encourage the realization of growth synergies oriented towards creating one-ness through focused and selected action.

One-ness is at the core of the one-ness initiative. It is clear that an end-to-end value chain must be aligned in purpose and destiny in order to realize synergistic growth. For example, consistent excellence across all locations is foundational to a one initiative, as it validates the single, vertical, supply chain perspective of the client. Organizations seeking one-ness must recalibrate their perspective on organizational design, potentially through patching activities, to enable or


1Attributes of a Lack of One-nessCountRoot CauseRemedyTraining capacity availability and uniformity18Lack of a centralized universityThe company universityNo end -to -end (E2E) rejection tracker11Multiple systems/methods for trackingTitle base rejection trackerDisparate logistics groups10Fragmented logistics resourcesConsolidate management of logisticsWarehouse proliferation10Multiple warehousesWarehouse optimization strategyLack of capable support for infrastructure6Fragmented support for infrastructureCentralized support for infrastructureLack of E2E version control6Multiple systems/methods for trackingCommon system (ERP)Non-collaborative growth synergy strategy6Multiple agendas, lack of coordinationStrategy consensus at upper levelsVariable ratio FL/FT per location6Variable methodologiesAnalysis and recalibrationVaried software development process6Disparate processesDeploy common method/ consolidateLack of infrastructure management6Multiple agendasConsolidate management of infrastructureNo synergistic consolidations6Lack of coordination, strategyAssess opportunity and exploitNon -centralized maintenance of equipment5Multiple approachesHardware inventory systemNo collaborative execution5Lack of coordinationLack of trust, reward systemUnconsolidated billing5Disparate entitiesConsolidate management and optimizeUnconsolidated storage of assets5Disparate locations/methodsAssess, consolidate, purgeUnconsolidated ingest of assets5Disparate locations/methodsStrategy to route to one pointUnconsolidated shipping & receiving5Disparate locations/methodsStrategy to route to one pointContinuous improvement is not executed timely5Disparate methodsAdopt a single processData architecture standards are varied5Multiple agendasConsolidate management and standardFinancial reporting -late or hard to comprehend5Single understandable timely packetDirect finance to do soHardware inventory unavailable5Lack single systemHardware inventory systemLack of parts centralization5Not registered in single systemHardware inventory systemLack of resource redeployment process5Not registered in single systemHardware inventory systemVaried or no Quality Management System5Disparate systems/agendasConsolidate into one QMSVaried or no Security Management System5Disparate systems/agendasConsolidate into one SMSLack of skill synergy exploitation5Siloed businessesAssess and consolidate, strategyUncoordinated software licensing5Not registered in single systemHardware inventory systemNot standardize best practices5Multiple agendasSinge performance excellence leaderUncoordinated support contracts5Not registered in single systemHardware inventory systemDisparate workflow management systems5Disparate systems, if anyConsolidate on ERPCRM not uniformly utilized5Disparate systems, if anyConsensus on participation by upper managementLack of billing consolidation/standardization3Siloed businessesConsolidate billing under one teamSub-optimal P&L grouping3Lack of appropriate groupingChange to optimize profitabilityDo not bill the same customer similarly2Siloed businesses, multiple formsConsolidate billing under one teamDisparate business system2Disparate legacy systemsConsolidate on ERPUnfair intercompany rates2Disparate methods, if anyConsensus on single method by upper management
			The Quest for One-Ness: An MNE's Journey
			© 2018 Global Journals 1
			© 2018 Global JournalsThe Quest for One-Ness: An MNE's Journey
		
		
			

sustain profitable growth in an evolving market that embraces, or already has embraced, the benefits of one-ness. Fundamentally, competitive enterprises are compelled to strategically position themselves in alignment with the one megatrend in order to maintain and enhance market share in a dynamic environment. Evidence of one-ness is clearly seen in organizations that have achieved it. Such evidence could be a mature quality system that promotes a performance standard and that has equal influence on all locations, encouraging performance parity and improvement. There should be a common security awareness and similarity in infrastructure integrity at each site, indicating the level of concern and control over the threat environment. This could be augmented by a knowledge management system that engages entrepreneurialism, producing new knowledge while unifying task knowledge through centralization, utilization, and influence. A mechanism can be deployed to verify that training is effectively deployed on a single platform by measuring comprehension and to what extent users depend on it for knowledge acquisition. An effective data management system consolidates knowledge by exploiting a globally accessible framework. The internal unification of systems can streamline operations. For example, the standardization of infrastructure components allows for knowledge of hardware disposition and the redeployment of it to accommodate local capacity requirements. Unity is easily found in an MNE's organizational design when the layout of the positions is clear and practices are commonly centered on excellence. This organizational unity is augmented by a common vision-mission that is embedded in strategic planning documents. This alignment unity is further encouraged through a deployed set of values and norms that creates a single mindset among organization leaders. Ultimately, it is the client that decides if oneness is achieved. In fact, clients expect a singular, highreliability performance experience in the value chain that includes a mature remediation process when infrequent non-conformities occur. The client's impression of the MNE is influenced by how the organization allows itself is to be transformed and monitored externally. Using assets as an example, clients expect that their assets are available, locatable, and treated in a similarly excellent way, regardless of where they are in the endto-end vendor's supply chain. All in all, clients count on the reliability of the vendor's supply chain workflows, which are dependent on the continuously available capability of each linked functional element. Fortunately for The case company, an organization intrinsically embraces the idea of one-ness and so is an ideal structure to scale and preserve a single supply chain view to clients. A structure that is scalable in all dimensions, such as the organization, can propagate alignment and a suitable culture to improve profitability. Scaling is directly related to the ability of the supply chain to manage its resources effectively. Scaling may include work shifting and pooling to optimize cost structures as seen in cost per similar deliverable measurements. The organization is intrinsically a propagator for one-ness as it can scale while preserving social or cultural attributes.

In summary, the significance of being aligned and collaborative is that it helps the MNE achieve profitability realization. This one-ness initiative helps businesses achieve collaborative alignment, which in turn, helps them achieve growth synergies. The Oneness initiative recalibrated the thinking of employees. It is a mindset, or norm, that guides action plans. The lack of one-ness fragments the mission and the purpose of the organization. Chaos is present in a dynamic market and performance issues are imminent regardless of the environment. An organization that embraces one-ness has a better chance of sustained performance, and will be more able to survive the future. One-ness is also attractive as it is a complexity-reduction technique that was applied to the global production network. Two businesses that did similar work could have diverse performance characteristics due to a lack of one-ness. When this occurs within two businesses in an MNE, clients are confused. Alignment, on the other hand, accelerates the creation of trust and collaboration. Selected actions guided by one-ness become simpler for all involved, as there is less noise. It is clear that scaling is dependent on a singular mindset that is tuned to the addressable market and the directional strategy.


## V. Contributions to Theory

The primary contribution of this article is new empirical insights about how awareness contributes to collaboration that, consequently, enables growth realization in an MNE. These results are, therefore, relevant to the achievement of sustained profitability and competitive advantage by focusing a multi -unit firm on business unit relatedness and strategic complementarity. Seven propositions were extracted from the participants instigated by a precipitated event that contribute to theory. These outcomes that influence change efficacy are described and useful for sustained corporate advantage.

The author anticipates that these propositions will stimulate further research as organizational behavior is significantly complex and situational. These observations are also meant to stimulate further thinking. By studying the distinctive features of achieving one-ness, the author hopes that interest has been sparked on researching the design and application of further more effective and efficient methods and management techniques.
			
			

				


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