Enterprise Organization (10K+ employees)
Large multinational corporation reduced cross-functional coordination overhead while improving innovation velocity and strategic alignment, achieving 72% coordination reduction.
Organization Profile
A multinational enterprise with 12,000+ employees across 8 countries, 5 business units, and 40+ departments. The organization had been through multiple acquisitions and reorganizations, resulting in overlapping functions, unclear decision authorities, and significant coordination overhead.
Despite having world-class talent and resources, the organization was struggling with innovation velocity. Strategic initiatives took 18+ months to move from concept to implementation. Cross-functional projects faced constant delays due to competing priorities and unclear decision rights.
The Hidden Coordination Tax
Where Coordination Overhead Was Hidden
- Committee Governance: Major decisions went through 5+ committees (Executive Steering, Business Unit, Functional, Risk, and Compliance). A single decision could take 3-4 months to navigate approvals.
- Duplicate Functions: Each business unit had its own Finance, HR, IT, and Compliance teams. Decisions that should have been centralized took 2x longer due to need for consensus.
- Approval Chains: A project required approval from 12+ different people across 8 departments. Average approval took 8 days per step = 96 days in approval queues alone.
- Cross-functional Project Coordination: Complex projects had 15+ stakeholders who needed to be kept informed and coordinated. Project managers spent 40% of time coordinating vs. executing.
- Change Control Burden: Any change required documentation packages, change control board approvals, and risk assessments. Simple changes took weeks to implement.
- Overlapping Strategic Initiatives: Three different departments were working on "digital transformation" independently, duplicating effort and creating conflicts.
The Real Cost
At an average loaded cost of $175K per professional (across all departments), 72% coordination overhead meant approximately $126K of annual value per person spent on coordination.
With 12,000 employees, coordination overhead was consuming $37M annually. The organization calculated that 33% of this overhead could be eliminated through clearer decision authorities, streamlined governance, and elimination of duplicate functions—yielding $2.66M in recoverable annual capacity plus improved strategic execution.
Engagement Phases
Key Outcomes
Quantifiable Results
- 72% reduction in coordination overhead: From 37M hours annually to 10.4M hours
- $2.66M annual time savings: Recoverable capacity across the organization
- Decision cycle time reduced by 68%: Major decisions reduced from 3-4 months to 4-6 weeks
- Strategic initiative implementation accelerated by 9 months: Time from concept to market impact reduced from 18+ months to 9 months
- Committee burden reduced 70%: From 5+ committees per decision to 2 decision authorities
- Project manager overhead reduced 50%: Time spent coordinating vs. executing rebalanced
Business Outcomes
- Innovation velocity increased—could now experiment and fail fast rather than lengthy approval processes
- Market response time improved—could act on competitive threats in weeks vs. months
- M&A integration dramatically improved—clear governance model made acquisitions easier to integrate
- Leadership retention improved—senior leaders spent less time in meetings, more on strategy
- Cross-functional collaboration improved despite fewer committees—clearer authorities meant better decisions
- Risk management actually improved—faster decision-making with clear authorities reduced "shadow" decisions
- Strategic alignment improved—clear decision authorities reduced political maneuvering
- Revenue growth acceleration—new initiatives reached market 6 months faster on average
Client Perspective
"As we got larger, we added more governance thinking that would reduce risk. But we created the opposite effect—we reduced agility so much that we became riskier. We were slow to respond to the market, slow to fix problems, slow to capitalize on opportunities. What Luigi helped us see is that trust and clear authorities is the best risk management. When people know their boundaries and have authority to decide within those boundaries, they actually make better decisions and you move faster. That was counterintuitive but transformative."
— Chief Operating Officer, Enterprise Organization
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