After being sold from the Volvo Group to Ford in 1999, and then again 2010 to the Geely Holding Group in China, Volvo Cars had faced several radical shifts in strategy in a short period. After several years of declining market share, Volvo Cars faced a “make it or break it” situation where a complete turnaround for the whole company was necessary. One of the initiatives to drive the turnaround internally was a total makeover of the Market Intelligence function.

Problem

Volvo’s Market Intelligence team didn’t directly support the strategic turnaround across the organization. They worked as a reactive service center, performing research and answering questions on demand.

Solution

Implementing a new process for continuous analysis and reporting based on the current strategic focus, supported by a professional intelligence platform. Establishing a cross-functional and cross-geographical framework for structured knowledge sharing, analysis, and reporting.

Goal

Supporting the strategic turnaround by integrating more proactive intelligence deliverables to all key projects, with fewer resources.

Outcomes and impact

Coming from a traditional staff function, mainly doing research and producing reports on request, the new Market Intelligence (MI) Department was re-organized as an internal consultancy firm.

The MI-team started participating in all key projects with medium or high strategic impact, contributing with intelligence skills and direct access to the global intelligence function when needed.

To optimize the use of available staff resources, Volvo brought in Wide Narrow to redesign and implement a strategically aligned process, supported by the Strategic Intelligence platform Perspective.

After implementation and training Volvo Cars realized in order:

• Centralized intelligence platform accessible across the entire organization
• Greatly improved collaboration and information sharing for the MI-consultants
• All key projects efficiently supported by ambassadors from the Intelligence-team
• Increased efficiency within the intelligence function – losing headcount due to budget restrictions and at the same time increasing frequency and quality of deliverables
• Increased strategic orientation across the organization thanks to continuous support of strategically aligned Intelligence

Key Takeaways

• A turnaround can only be successful when the entire organization understands and embraces the new strategic objectives as defined by top management
• Intelligence can strongly support strategy implementation, thanks to a continuous dialogue and business insights, when relating the new strategic objectives to the shifting business environment
• An Intelligence platform unlocks hidden potential. It increases both Intelligence productivity and impact by improving the collaborative workflow and providing global access to Intelligence deliverables

About Volvo Cars

The Volvo Car Corporation is a Swedish premium automobile manufacturer, headquartered in Gothenburg with manufacturing in Sweden, Belgium, and China. With approximately 2,300 local dealers from around 100 national sales companies worldwide, Volvo’s largest markets are the United States, China, Sweden, and Belgium. Main competitors are Audi, BMW, and Mercedes.