Global sustainability strategy for a leading medical device company
Facing deteriorating market share and eroding margins, a multibillion-dollar global medical device company sought a plan to conduct business in a more environmentally sustainable way—within its “four walls,” across the value chain, and throughout the product life cycle.
Challenge
Company executives called on A.T. Kearney to develop a global sustainability strategy that included guidelines and incentives for environmental stewardship, a business case for action, a governance model, and a plan to balance corporate direction with business-unit flexibility. The goal was to develop a five-to-10-year strategic plan, and do so in three-and-a-half months.
Approach
We used a three-phase global sustainability strategy to implement the work plan.
- Set the baseline. In the first six weeks, we worked at the corporate level to assess the company’s current environmental impact and sustainability practices. We identified all key environmental issues.
- Conduct the pilot. The next six weeks were spent rolling out a pilot at the business unit level, developing more hands-on experience and crafting all elements of the strategy, including business cases and environmental targets.
- Develop the strategy. Armed with the baseline and information from the pilot, we spent the last two weeks working with the firm to develop a sustainability strategy. We outlined a possible governance structure that included a sustainability council and an external advisory board, and highlighted six new programs and the business processes that would be affected (see figure).
Results
The new sustainability focus identified cost savings of between $23 and $77 million, with a potential revenue increase of $225 million.
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