Northwind Energy: A €128 M Transformation Case

Strategy
medium45 min0 submissions
Stripe
Scenario

Northwind Energy is a growth-stage renewables business in Europe with €631 M of revenue.

The COO has proposed a €128 M digital transformation over 3 years. Roughly 64% of core operational processes are still manual or spreadsheet-driven. The business case claims 4.4% 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 65% 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
64
industry failure rate pct
65

financials

revenue
631
investment
128
programme years
3
claimed annual saving pct
4.4

derived hints

annual saving
28
simple payback years
4.6
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