GlobalFoundries overhauls its process owner model to drive transformation

“When you start a transformation, everyone wants a quick win,” says Clay. “We resisted that approach. We spent a year developing, defining, and visioning our new process model before we bought any software. That approach has paid huge dividends.”

Introducing a new role: Global process business owner

Clay and his senior executive peers identified eight global processes: idea to product, hire to retire, order to cash, demand to deliver, source to pay, market to contract, make to order, and record to report. They then identified people for a new role, global process business owner (GPO), which would be the linchpin to the new model.

In companies that have a relatively clear understanding of their global processes, that GPO might be a Six Sigma Black Belt with a continuous improvement lens, but this was not the case with GlobalFoundries. “Because the concept of global business processes was new to us, we needed VP-level leaders to step into the new role. We had to drive the transformation from the top down.”

Taking on a GPO role is not for the faint of heart. Clay needed the newly appointed leaders to understand the magnitude of the change they would drive. “We communicated that this was not a continuous improvement effort where the owner would make the process 5% better,” he says. “Our message was that transformation starts at 50%, and that our leaders had to have the vision and courage to sign up for that level of improvement. Anyone will sign up for 5%; it’s in the margins. But 50% is where people get nervous. That’s a very visible level of accountability.”

Once process owners were identified, they went through training so they could have a common understanding of processes, lexicon, and ways of interacting. “We even did 360-degree assessments on the leaders, because we needed the process owners to be a tight-knit group,” says Clay. “They would be accountable for driving common process through the company in a way that had never been done before.”

Under each GPO are process advisory groups that span the various departments involved in a single global process and have a stake in its improvement. Because a GPO cannot have detailed knowledge about every single piece of a process, these advisory groups are critical to making the global process owner model work.