...Aligning Strategy and Sales 2012 December 2 - December 7, 2012 Schedule for Sunday, December 2, 2012 Time 11:00 - 3:30 PM 4:00 - 5:45 PM Event Registration Opening & Introductory Case Session Instructor: Frank Cespedes Location McArthur Hall Program Office McCollum 101 Cabot Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (510030) 5:45 - 6:30 PM 6:30 - 7:30 PM 7:30 PM Opening Reception Opening Dinner Individual Preparation McArthur Hall Lounge Kresge South Terrace Copyright 2012 President and Fellows of Harvard College Aligning Strategy and Sales 2012 December 2 - December 7, 2012 Schedule for Monday, December 3, 2012 Time 7:00 - 8:00 AM 8:00 - 8:45 AM 9:00 - 10:15 AM Event Breakfast Discussion Groups Case: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: A Period of Transition Instructor: John Wells Location Kresge Boardroom Assigned Living Group McCollum 101 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: A Period of Transition (796109) 10:15 - 10:30 AM Class Photo 10:30 - 10:45 AM Break 10:45 - 12:00 PM Lecture: Strategy Articulation Instructor: John Wells 12:00 - 1:00 PM 1:00 - 1:40 PM 1:45 - 3:00 PM Lunch Discussion Groups Case: Edward Jones in 2006: Confronting Success Instructor: Frank Cespedes Kresge Boardroom Assigned Living Group McCollum 101 Baker Library McArthur Hall Lounge McCollum 101 Edward Jones in 2006: Confronting Success (707497) 3:00 - 3:15 PM 3:15 - 4:15 PM Break Lecture: Making & Articulating Strategic Choices Instructor: Frank Cespedes 4:15 - 6:15 PM 6:30...
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...Providian Trust (P.T.) was a financial services company built on tradition. However, P.T.’s services were only marginally profitable as trust officers (T.O.) were responsible for cultivating client relationships while also handling account admin work. Their inefficiencies in handling administrative tasks led to customer complaints and $2-$5M in waived fees annually. Michael Leblanc, the SVP of Trust, Investment & Treasury saw the urgent need for change in order to keep up with competition and produce a high profit margin. With those goals in mind, Leblanc received approval from the P.T. board to install Access Plus (A.P.), new trust and custody management software. During this change process, failure to establish strong collaborative leadership to endure critical stages of the project implementation as well as misalignments between company values and processes complicated this change. Without the leadership of new CEO Stephen Walsh, who chose to maintain a ‘neutral’ status during project initiation, responsibility for implementing the A.P. system fell on Leblanc, who had no prior project management experience. Leblanc established a sense of urgency for the new project, but multiple attempts to create a strong guiding coalition failed because there was not a diverse enough set of representatives in the Steering Committee or the Implementation Committee. Without a strong committee, a cohesive vision cannot be achieved or communicated throughout the division. The committees...
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...Providian Trust (1) What key issues and challenges led to the initiation of the Access+ project? The key issues and challenges let to the initiation are as follows: * The Pension and Institutional Trust Services business had $42.7 billion in assets in 1994,which was the tenth-largest provider and they were losing money. They had outdated reporting systems as far as the clients were concerned. The institutional custody business was becoming extremely technology-intensive, with some of the larger players outsourcing their entire backroom function in order to make large operations more effective. * Internal process: The administrative functions were being done both by the front and back offices. There is an environment where everybody could point a finger at everybody else if something went wrong. The trust officers blamed the operations people and the operations people blamed the trust officers. * Intense client demand: (2) What organizational changes that the company should have made during the project to ensure the success of the Access+ project? * The front office of PITS and Personal Trust and the back office of Operation department which were responsible for handling, settlement, and record keeping for securities should made the changes during the project. * All existing trust information would be converted to the Access Plus system and the Operations group would become the primary caretakers of the data, taking over sole responsibility...
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...Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology Business context/Key business drivers Providian Trust, headquartered in New York, is a financial and fiduciary services company. In 1994, it had 216 branches and managed $49.4 billion in trust assets with a staff of 840 full-time employees. The firm was falling behind the competition because the institutional custody business was becoming extremely technology-intensive, with some of the larger players outsourcing their entire backroom function in order to make large operations more effective. Therefore, a project was initiated to convert the trust division’s outdated information system into a more efficient system using Access Plus, a new trust and custody management software. Initiatives objectives/Benefits Intensive competitive pressures, client demands, and some internal problems were driving the need for the initiative. Specifically: 1. Competitors were having more advanced systems and technical competitive advantages 2. Clients were unhappy about the quality of the services 3. Decentralized control and lack of a clear distribution of responsibility Providian Trust wished to solve the above problems through the implementation of the new system. They also expected that the improved computerized trust system would consolidate and centralize data administration, give trust officers more time to interact with clients, reduce the number of full-time employees from 840 to 660, and save $9.2 million annually. Initiative...
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...HULT International Business School Module C Information technology management Professor: Jim Slusser PROVIDIAN TRUST: TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY (A) Fenway Cohort Kamanasish Kundu 1. Business Context/Key Business Drivers * In 1994, Providian Trust, the tenth largest provider of financial and fiduciary services, slowly slipped away from profitability and competition due to the lack of efficient business processes and information technology. * The company was headquartered in New York and had three divisions Pension and Institutional Trust Services (PITS), Personal Trust and Trust Operations with a network of 216 branches. * To address the problems that Providian Trust were facing, Michael LeBlanc, the Senior Vice President of Trust, Investment and Treasury, took the initiative to lead the project aimed at not only implementing new technology but also reengineering Providian Trust’s business processes by implementing a major software system, Access plus, developed by Select One. The project, supposed to last for 20 months, cost $18 million, was finally approved by board members in April, 1994. * The key driver behind the above initiative was intense client demand on the part of PITS division, lack of control and discipline in the trust division, lack of operation efficiency and outdated reporting system. 2. Initiative Objectives/Benefits ...
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...BPR Through Access+ (BTA) 1. Overview 1.1 Reengineer Providian Trust’s business processes through effective use of information technology at all levels with Access+ 1.2 Project start-end dates 1.3 Project manager Team 7 independent project management firm Note* It was decided that since Michael LeBlanc did not have the experience or technical knowledge to effectively manage the projects. Furthermore, most employees at Providian where “old school” and didn’t have the fortitude or desire to implement or manage this change. 2. Problem and Purpose 2.1 Problem Statement 2.1.1 Providian Trust’s outdated information system has caused a lack of oversight and control, outdated reporting systems, ambiguous staff functions, and an inability to keep up with client demands. Furthermore, the current system lacks the security safeguards with regards to clients PII that is required by law. This lack of security is required leaves Providian Trust open to heavy fines and costly lawsuits. The deficiencies have resulted in a loss of command and control, repetitive workloads loss of competitive advantage and $5 million every year. 2.3 Purpose 2.3.1 The purpose of this project is to implement an updated information system (Access+) and restructure job functions. Upon transformation, Providian Trust will be better suited to react to increased client demand. The improved system will enable increased efficiency, service quality while lowering operating costs by $9...
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...OK, Determinants are Easy, but What are they good for? Oops, sorry English Folks, I meant “For what are they good?” Sometimes it may seem to students that the only value of the thing they have just learned in math is to be able to learn the next thing and although I am a big proponent of the “Math for Math’s sake” school, I occasionally feel a swelling up of my old Engineering background urging me to provide an application of the learning. In just such a mood, I offer the following APPLICATIONS OF DETERMINANTS We begin by asking you to recall that moment not so long ago when you were in an algebra or geometry class, and a problem might begin when we gave you the coordinates of three points in the coordinate plane, A=(2,1); B=(5,6) and C= (9,-1). Among the myriad things we might have asked you to do with this given information would be two that are easily answered by the methods of determinants; “Find the area of the triangle formed?” and “Prove that the three points are, or are not, collinear (lie on the same line).” Finding the area of a triangle If you had not had the benefit of an introduction to determinants, you might have to resort to something like the following to find area. Taking the points in pairs we could find the length of each segment, ([pic], [pic], and [pic]) and then employing the well known formula of Heron (you do remember Heron’s Formula, don’t you?) to find the area. We would arrive at an area of 20.5 square units. But now...
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...1. Providian Trust being the 10th largest financial and fiduciary services provider, slowly deteriorated in terms of profitability and competition in 1994 due to lack of efficient business process and IT. The key motive behind the initiation of Access Plus was due to the following reasons: * Forceful client demand on the part of PITS division. * Trust division lacked control and discipline. * Operation efficiency and outdated reporting systems as far as the clients concerned. * To convert the trust divisions expired information system to more efficient system. * Seeking improved methods to serve the clients. * Time, Quality and Cost improvement. * Improper tracking of all the services gave way to a huge price and thus led to a centralized tracking system. * Lack of knowledge on using different types of technology and software. * The institutional custody business became technology concentrated with some of them outsourcing the entire backroom function to have an effective operations. * The Front and back offices performed administrative functions. So there were blame games between trust officers and operations people. 2. To ensure success of Access Plus project, Providian has to make many organizational changes: * Give computer lessons to front office and back office aiming to teach them to process data through computers. * Full project testing can be implemented and deadlines have to be extended. * Communication...
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...Essay on Providian Trust : Tradition and Technology (A) 1.Business context / Key Business drivers: Providian Trust is one of the Top 10 leading trust companies that activate in delivering financial and fiduciary services. Providian runs its business using its 216 subsidiaries network. The main origin of their earnings resides in commercial and residential mortgages, as well as consumer and corporate loans. The CEO of the company, Stephen Walsh, is facing the conflicting situation that was created under Michael LeBlanc’s command. LeBlanc is the senior vice president of Trust, Investment and Treasury and is responsible for leading the company’s reengineering project that is meant to result in the successful implementation of Select One’s main software system-Access Plus-which is already used by Providian’s competitors. The alarming scarcity of control and discipline inside the trust division is one of the key factors that triggered the necessity of creating and implementing this project. |2. Initiative Objectives |Initiative Benefits | |-improve front&back offices’ way of managing the |-increase control over customers’ accounts | |accounts | | |-centralize trust information |- better and more efficient reporting system | |- reduce time...
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...9-707-446 REV: JANUARY 28, 2008 JOHN R. WELLS Providian Financial Corporation Introduction On October 3, 2005, Washington Mutual acquired Providian Financial Corporation, the ninthlargest credit card issuer in the U.S., for $6.5 billion. At the time, Providian had approximately 10 million customer relationships and a balance of $18.6 billion. For some observers, the transaction was merely the end of another chapter in the history of the fast consolidating credit card market.1 For Providian CEO Joseph Saunders it was vindication of four years’ hard work in turning around a company that many thought was close to bankruptcy. Saunders reflected, “I actually think that we took over a company that many people—maybe even most people—thought was going to fail”; he added, “Providian is no longer just a turnaround story, we are a success story.”2 Company History Providian began as Commonwealth Insurance, which was founded in 1904. The company survived the depression of the 1930s and, in the late 1960s, formed Capital Holdings to acquire other insurance enterprises and financial services companies. In the 1980s Capital Holdings started targeting low- and middle-income people when it established itself in Kroger grocery stores and in certain Bank of America branches. The 1984 acquisition of First Deposit Corporation from Parker Pen marked the beginning of the compnay’s focus on credit cards, which “later became [its] primary profit-making operation.”3 In the 1990s, Capital Holdings...
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...Case Write-up (Case 1) 1. Problem Analysis Providian Trust is a trust company that is a leader in the financial and fiduciary service which locates in New York with total 216 branches. Recently, there was an extraordinary difference of opinion between Providian Trust’s internal auditor and the leaders of a major information technology project in the trust division. After reading the case, I found below problems: * Lack of effective communication and engagement with the frontline trust officer and clients for better cooperation * Lack of internal alignment, internal centralized control and team cooperation * Lack of experience * Lack of realistic project deadline for efficient * Failure to fully implement the UAT test * Training was not provided properly * Fear of change and technology 2. Recommendation * Enhance communication among all divisions and parties of the company and get the people who are going to be affected by the change to be involve in it * Extend deadlines of the project and clear deadline to set the correct expectation * Senior management’s engagement and participation is very important and should be trigger at the very early stage. * Implement a full testing of the project * Provide the proper training to users 3. Any relation or learning with the current practice in my company? Other than the call center business, my company is also an ITO company developing software and platform for internal and external...
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...THE iPREMIER COMPANY (A): Denial of Service Attack By Robert Austin November 19, 2003 DPDN Brian Dyrud Jennifer Paterson Paul Davidson Lindsay Neal BACKGROUND: iPremier, a Seattle based company, was founded in 1994 by two students from Swathmore College. iPremier had become one of the only success stories of web-based commerce, selling luxury, rare, and vintage goods over the Internet. Most of iPremier’s goods sell for under $200 and the customer buys the products online with his or her credit card. iPremier’s competitive advantage is their flexible return policies which allows the customer to thoroughly check out the product and make a decision to keep the product or return it. The majority of iPremier customers are high end and credit limits are not a problem, which also adds to the competitive advantage of utilizing their entire customer base. During 1999 the company reached a profit of $2.1 million on sales of $32 million. Sales had increased by 50% during the last three years and they were in an upward trend. iPremier’s stock nearly tripled after the company’s Initial Public Offering in 1998 and had continued to grow since the IPO, and eventually the stock tripled again. iPremier was one of the few companies to survive the technical stock recession of 2000. Management at iPremier consisted of young people who had been with the company from the start and a group of experienced managers that were brought in over time as the company grew. IPremier’s...
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...CASE ANALYSIS- Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology Kate Cavanaugh Stakeholders * All Employees / committees and Teams / Internal and External (e.g. Boston) * CEO Stephen Walsh * Steinman and Smith (External Auditor) * Audit Committee * Board of Directors * Select One (Software company) * Michael LaBlanc * Kay Whitney Investment (investment counsel/portfolio managers) * Steering Committee * Todd Bernari- VP of Implementation Team History * Headquarters NYC * Company lending products: residential, commercial mortgages; consumer/corp loans (principle revenue) * New CEO Stephan Walsh –Law background * 216 branches nationwide * 840 employees * Managed Total $49.4B * Pension & Institutional = $42.7B * Personal Trust Services= $6.7B (10,000 clients) * 250 Operations People “back office” * “Front office” people are Trust officers Decision: To implement new hardware and software to existing systems Case Information: * Budget $18M * New technology – Culture change- seasoned employees (20-30 years) * Lost revenue because of waived fee $2-5M * Improve Service levels to Customers * Software customized * Computer system outdated- replace and integrate new hardware and software * Responsibilities change from Trust officers to Operations managers * Train employees on systems * Reduce number of employees from 840 to 660 * ROI- $9.2M * 1010 Financial...
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...that firm’s Houston office shredded certain Enron audit workpapers during the midst of a federal investigation of the large energy company. The decision to destroy those workpapers ultimately proved to be the undoing of the prominent accounting firm. A few years later, a felony conviction for obstruction of justice would effectively put Andersen out of business. Ironically, at the same time that the Andersen personnel were shredding Enron workpapers, three senior members of the NextCard, Inc., audit engagement team were altering the fiscal 2000 audit workpapers of that San Francisco-based company. NextCard was founded during the late 1990s by Jeremy Lent, the former chief financial officer of the large financial services company, Providian Financial Corporation. Lent’s business model was simple: use a massive Internet-based marketing campaign to quickly grab a large market share of the intensely competitive credit card industry. By 2000, NextCard, which by then was a public company, had signed up one million credit card customers. Unfortunately, NextCard’s customers tended to be high credit risks, which resulted in the company absorbing much higher than normal bad debt losses. When the company’s management team attempted to conceal those large credit losses, the SEC and other federal regulatory authorities uncovered the scam. By 2003, the once high-flying Internet company was bankrupt and its former officers were facing a litany of federal charges. The San Francisco...
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...CASE 1.6 NEXTCARD, INC. Jeremy Lent, a chief financial officer (CFO) with Providian Financial Corporation decided to apply the marketing tactics used by Providian to establish an internet based company to offer Internet users a faster way to obtain credit cards. Lent hired dozens of marketing researchers to analyze the “surfing habits of Internet users. With this information the marketing team developed an Internet-based advertising campaign to target internet users that frequently used their credit cards and maintained large balances due to purchases made over the internet. NextCard advertised to new customers if they applied on line a response would be received within 30 seconds. Lents business model was a success and by 2000 and had more daily hits than any other credit card issuer. Other well established credit card affiliates referred potential clients to NextCard. NextCard had extended more than $1 billion of credit to internet customers but unfortunately profits were not immediate which the executives ignored to disclose in any press releases. A NextCard executive boasted in February of 2000 that the “company continues to beat our aggressive growth targets while maintaining very strong parameters and core elements of our business model” (Knapp, p 6). In 1999 the company produced a large loss of about $77.2 million. NextCard was able to take the company public with stock price initialing selling for $20 per share regardless of large losses for each reporting...
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