Case Studies

For more than three decades, Darshan Khalsa has provided change management, business innovation and operational improvement consulting services for small, medium and large organizations including some of the world's largest corporations. Here are some case studies of his experience.

Methodologies: Partnering, strategic planning, problem solving, business process reengineering

Eastman Kodak, headquartered in Rochester, New York and the world's largest manufacturer of photographic film and related products, awarded two-year renewable procurement contracts worth over $100 million per year for personal computer products and services to five competing suppliers in 1995. Each competitor had bid on the entire contract, encompassing the PC lifecycle from needs determination through procurement, assembly and software configuration, delivery, installation, training, telephone support and dispatch, repair, asset management and retirement. Instead of making one award, Kodak awarded different product/service arenas to each of the five competitors, leaving them with the problem of interfacing their business processes with each other and with Kodak, yet still requiring them to meet the contractual quality measures known as Kodak MASLs (minimum acceptable service levels).

In addition to four incompatible mainframe computer systems that Kodak used to manage its procurement activities, each of the competing suppliers had their own incompatible processes, logistics and computer systems, making the difficulty of integrating these disparate systems into one seamless operation at least an order of magnitude greater complexity than if Kodak had made the award to a sole supplier.

Darshan Khalsa was placed in charge of initiating and implementing his employer's portion of the contract for computer procurement, configuration and delivery. At the first meeting of the new and former contract providers with Kodak project leaders, it became apparent that all parties were in competitive conflict with each other and that Kodak's stated goal of a smooth transition in six months to the new suppliers was in serious jeopardy due to a high level of mutual distrust.

After the first meeting, Khalsa requested Kodak to participate in a planning meeting hosted by his organization for all the new suppliers. Using storyboarding as a means of organizing group ideas and issues, Khalsa facilitated a day-long partnering workshop that developed rapport among the different teams, identified common goals and objectives, surfaced potential business process conflicts and cost drivers, and set action items for the next meeting. The workshop was so successful that Khalsa continued as the primary facilitator and Kodak adopted all the methodologies that Khalsa subsequently introduced for facilitating project meetings and tracking progress toward issues resolution.

By the fourth month, the six-month transition was on schedule and Kodak determined that detailed process documentation was needed. Khalsa's proposal to facilitate the necessary business process mapping sessions was accepted and a member of Kodak's business process reengineering department was assigned full-time so that Khalsa's methodologies could be adopted for future Kodak projects. A series of day-long business process reengineering meetings were facilitated by Khalsa for three weeks during which a cross section of personnel involved in all aspects of the PC lifecycle processes, including end user groups, were engaged in identifying the revised business process flows and any problem areas. Khalsa facilitated supplemental meetings to resolve problems where necessary.

The methodologies that Khalsa introduced to Kodak caught the attention of the CIO, who determined that in future Kodak would use this approach for all its projects.

As mandated by Kodak, all PC procurement activities and systems were switched to the new suppliers over a weekend at the six-month deadline, and everything worked. The transition was a success and Kodak eventually renewed the two-year contract worth $60 million annually. Kodak became a showcase account and leading reference for the company in building its Fortune 500 customer base.

Methodologies: Team building, partnering, customer service training, conflict resolution, negotiation 

Southwestern Bell is one of the Regional Bell Operating Companies, headquartered in St Louis, Missouri, and one of the world's largest telecommunications companies.

In 1995, Darshan Khalsa's employer had won a multiple-year contract worth $40 million annually to provide personal computer procurement services to Southwestern Bell. The company had placed a sales and order processing team of fifteen people in an office inside Southwestern Bell headquarters building. After six months due to management and business process problems, that team soon found itself with a three-month order backlog, loss of all future orders and several million dollars in disputed accounts receivable that the client refused to pay.

On the day that Southwestern Bell threatened to terminate its contract, Khalsa was asked by his employer to transition the relationship with Southwestern Bell into a successful partnership.

Working on-site at Southwestern Bell headquarters, Khalsa assessed the situation and determined that the business process and team management problems were potentially solvable and that Southwestern Bell executives were willing to build a partnership with their supplier. Khalsa coached, reorganized and expanded the team, improved operational processes, and negotiated new order processing and accounts receivable reconciliation procedures within both companies. Khalsa conducted customer service training for the order processing team that dramatically improved customer satisfaction, facilitated team building sessions, and conducted creative problem solving meetings with many levels within both organizations. Within three weeks, the order backlog and disputed accounts receivable were eliminated and the client agreed to resume placing future orders. Over the next two months, new team management was hired and a new automated order tracking system designed by Khalsa was implemented.

Customer service dramatically improved and the group was awarded renewal of its annual contract worth $40 million. Khalsa received his employer's Associate of the Quarter Award in 1996 for this work with the Southwestern Bell account.

Methodologies: Conflict resolution, problem solving, partnering, business process reengineering, continuous improvement process

Carlson Companies, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota is one of the world's largest travel companies. In the mid-1990's, Khalsa's employer won a multi-year contract to provide personal computer procurement and deployment services to Carlson headquarters and had placed on-site over two dozen order processing personnel and service technicians. 

In late 1996, due to advances in PC technology, what had once been a highly profitable and fairly efficient operation for Khalsa's employer as the product and service provider abruptly fell apart when Carlson's multitude of proprietary software applications began conflicting with the new standard Microsoft operating systems bundled with every new personal computer ordered by Carlson and configured and installed on-site by the service provider. Customer satisfaction suddenly plummeted, operational costs soared and tensions mounted. Within three months the situation had became so acute that Darshan Khalsa was called in to salvage the account, with the power to make any changes necessary within his company to rectify the situation.

After conducting a series of problem solving meetings, several key areas were determined to be of highest priority: 

* developing a partnering relationship between the two companies; 

* moving beyond blame-shifting to quality process root-cause analysis; 

* improving communication within the service provider team and with Carlson personnel at all levels;  

 * reengineering the computer procurement and deployment processes within both companies. 

Reporting directly to the Carlson CIO, Khalsa facilitated partnering, conflict resolution and business process reengineering meetings involving all stakeholders, established a single point of contact for customer complaints, revised work order processes, contracted for the reprogramming of the service provider's field service dispatch system to match received inventory with field service work orders and to capture service technician billing detailed activities and delays, reorganized the order processing team, and negotiated the redefinition of billable field service activities to reflect the increased costs of reconfiguring personal computers to work properly with Carlson proprietary software.

Within two months, customer complaints were eliminated and the situation had improved so significantly that Carlson agreed to continue doing business with the service provider.

Methodologies: Project management, IT systems integration, partnering, business process reengineering

In late 1997, the global consulting firm Price Waterhouse was in the process of merging with former competitor Coopers & Lybrand, to become PricewaterhouseCoopers. The centralized Purchasing division of Price Waterhouse was a pioneer in seeking to deploy an easy to use Internet-based electronic requisitioning and procurement system accessible by all U.S. field and office personnel that would be capable of handling electronic catalogs of multiple commodities including computers and office supplies. 

Price Waterhouse requested Khalsa's employer to create an electronic commerce system for computer products and services already being purchased under contract from one of the company's resellers at the rate of $40 million per year for eventual deployment to thousands of PricewaterhouseCoopers associates after the merger was completed. Khalsa served in his typical capacity as design architect and project leader for this engagement. 

Over a period of several months, Khalsa worked with Price Waterhouse personnel and company programmers to document business processes, reengineer operational procedures, integrate legacy computer systems via Electronic Data Interchange standards, and build a user-friendly Internet electronic requisition approval and procurement system based on IBM Websphere to meet the needs of PricewaterhouseCoopers field and office personnel. 

The electronic purchasing approach was adopted by the new merged organization as a result of these efforts, and the electronic commerce system was successfully deployed to PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998. 

Methodologies: Strategic planning, problem solving, conflict resolution, team building, business process reengineering, project management

Khalsa has worked with diverse organizations of all sizes to solve business problems and unite groups with conflicting points of view to work together to implement creative solutions. He typically works with all levels of an organization to identify common goals, purposes and actions.

Here are some examples:

Conducted strategic planning for health clinics to remove obstacles to growth and resolve interpersonal problems with "profound" results.

Led strategic visioning for real estate management company.

Conducted group problem solving sessions for improved account penetration by sales and service teams.

Conducted planning sessions for a world music recording artist to achieve lifetime career goals.

Coordinated growth strategy planning for a small division that grew twenty-fold in the following year.

Conducted strategic planning sessions for software company.

Led teambuilding and improved communications among four unrelated divisions of a conglomerate.

Facilitated multicultural church group in building trust to undertake major facilities expansion.

Improved communication among team members and improved business processes between supply chain partners.

Facilitated partnering workshop for internet commerce software development of a research department.

Conducted visioning session for nonprofit organization to set multi-year agenda.

Improved order processing and employee training for wholesale distributor.

Conducted priority planning session for global energy technology company IT department.

Conducted problem solving workshop for petrochemical company IT department.

Developed a war room that improved client project management by a global computer services organization.

Facilitated transition of technical services during bank merger.

Reorganized customer service group for a major financial institution.