Amber Grid: A €85 M Transformation Case

Strategy
medium45 min0 submissions
BCG
Scenario

Amber Grid is a mature-stage utilities business in Europe with €718 M of revenue.

The COO has proposed a €85 M digital transformation over 4 years. Roughly 66% of core operational processes are still manual or spreadsheet-driven. The business case claims 1.7% of revenue in annual run-rate savings once complete.

Complications the board is aware of:

  • Two previous system implementations were abandoned mid-way
  • Industry studies suggest 71% of transformations of this size miss their stated benefits
  • The proposal assumes headcount reduction that no one has yet discussed with the affected teams
  • The savings are back-loaded: almost none arrive before year 2

The CEO wants to know whether to approve it, shrink it, or reject it.

Supporting data

context

prior failed attempts
2
manual process share pct
66
industry failure rate pct
71

financials

revenue
718
investment
85
programme years
4
claimed annual saving pct
1.7

derived hints

annual saving
12
simple payback years
7.1
Your task

Advise the CEO. Your answer should provide:

  1. Analysis — the business case on the numbers, including payback.
  2. Risks — what makes this fail, and how you would detect it early.
  3. Recommendation — approve, resize, phase or reject, with a specific first step.

State any assumptions you make.

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How you'll be graded

100 points, 60% to pass.

  • business case25
  • execution risk25
  • recommendation25
  • problem structuring25
Hint
Reveal suggested structure

Business case and payback; risk-adjusted return; phasing and gates; adoption as the constraint