8. Finding the Way Out of a Dead End: The Jungle Metamorphosis

As the service provider of a European conglomerate with approx. 15,000 employees; a total of five business divisions (Energy Production, Plastics Manufacturing, Automotive, Solar Technology and Aviation) and some 90 subsidiaries Information Management GmbH—abbreviated to IM below—generates over two-thirds of its turnover within the conglomerate in accordance with management instructions. IM was founded 8 years ago with the objective of creating IT-related synergy effects. The company succeeded in doing this very well, also in the past. In the case of standard IT services, the so-called commodity segments such as operation of data centres; licence procurement and desktop service, IM has been able to achieve consolidation and fulfil its brief despite the fact that all the companies within the group have their own IT departments. With its 200 employees IM has become—to put it flippantly—the conglomerate’s “central watchdog” telling the company IT departments what to do.