Executing a strategic transformation

Learn how a global professional services firm partnered with BTS to accelerate growth, increase operational efficiency, and face the future.
October 22, 2021
5
min read
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Client need

A global professional services firm delivering risk advisory and insurance solutions to companies, institutions, and individuals was undergoing a strategic transformation to accelerate growth, increase operational efficiency, and prepare for the future. To succeed, this transformation would require investments to streamline processes and platforms, along with a shift in how people work. To improve operations, the organization had already segmented the business and reduced layers, attempting to drive simplicity, transparency, and distributed decision making across the firm. However, adapting to the new operating model would require systemic change.

The organization’s chief human resources officer (CHRO) engaged BTS to help jumpstart the strategic transformation. BTS collaborated with the organization to create a program that would align the broader leadership team, comprised of everyone below the executive committee, to this transformation. The goals of the program was to help leaders translate the new strategy into something meaningful and actionable at their departmental level, and also to catalyze the broader leadership team’s strategy execution.

BTS created a highly contextualized business simulation, including presentations, facilitated discussions, and focused training, all of which were customized for the organization.

Solution

BTS began the design process by interviewing 18 senior executives across the organization. These senior executives included the CEO, COO, CHRO, and presidents of regional divisions. They were selected to provide a broad representation of and perspective on the organization. The goal of this research was to define two broad topic areas:

The Business – understanding the organization's business model, the markets in which it operates, and the unique challenges and opportunities it faces.

The People and Leadership – understanding the behavioral and mindset shifts the organization wanted to see in its people, leadership, and culture.

Following the interviews with top-level executives, BTS conducted eight additional interviews with mid-level executives. This allowed for insight into specific business units and challenges referenced in the previous set of interviews.

Interview responses were distilled into a list of themes and organized into an “impact map.” The map defined the business impact envisioned by the organization and linked it to the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and mindsets the organization sought to foster.

The organization’s steering committee reviewed the impact map with the goal of gaining alignment on their key challenges, desired behavioral shifts, and key business results.

To achieve these behavioral shifts, the company collaborated with BTS to design a business simulation modeled after the company’s business. The simulation created a risk-free, engaging, and fun way to achieve learning objectives, and was composed of three rounds experienced over a two-day program. Each round had a theme with distinct learning points.

Round one was designed for leaders to learn how to optimize today’s business in service of driving long-term profitable growth. This involved gaining an understanding of the business landscape, as well as familiarity with the decisions and trade-offs that such growth requires. Round Two focused on the client, becoming a strategic advisor to clients, and enhancing leaders’ abilities to execute. Round Three prepared leaders for a future of making long-term investments in order to develop a sustainable competitive advantage.

Leaders were divided into teams of five at the beginning of the program. Each team included participants from a diverse array of functional and geographic sections of the organization. The experience was composed of seven main elements:

  1. Pre-Work and Introduction – Participants received a pre-start date reading assignment: a detailed case study featuring a fictitious company in a fictitious market environment. The company and market environment described were very similar to the organization and its environment. BTS facilitators kicked off the program by making a case for change, highlighting shifts in the market environment. Participants then broke off into pairs to reflect on those shifts and discuss what the changes meant for them as leaders. Then, BTS facilitators led a discussion wherein participants shared their reflections with the entire group.
  2. Strategy Session – In teams of five, leaders came up with a strategy for how they would lead the simulated company.
  3. Running the company - In their teams of five, leaders ran their simulated company by making over fifty critical decisions. Each team had their own designated breakout room where they would debate their decisions and enter them into a live digital-simulation platform. Periodically, teams would receive a “Wobbler,” which was an unexpected event that they had to respond to in real time (usually a competitor action, a client issue, or a talent issue). Their decisions impacted their KPIs and market share for each market and segment. Participants “ran the company” for three rounds, which represented a three-year timeframe.
  4. Know-Hows – After each round of running the company, participants came back to the main room for a teach-piece or “know-how,” which were skill or knowledge gaps identified as needing to be addressed. After Round One, the topic was “effective decision-making.” For Round Two, it was “future-proofing.” Round Three’s topic was “feedback culture.”
  5. Debriefs — With the entire group present, BTS facilitators reviewed the results for each team, linking the decisions that teams made to their performance. Each of the three rounds had a theme, and facilitators emphasized key takeaways related to these themes. At the end of each debrief, facilitators revealed where teams ranked against each other. Participants also received a report showing their team’s annual financial performance, along with another that summarized the competing teams’ performance.
  6. Application Session – During these sessions, participants committed to post-program actions, recording them using an electronic tool. Following the completion of the program, participants received follow-up reminders of their commitments at a scheduled cadence.
  7. Reflection Sessions — Solo reflections and team reflections were interspersed throughout the two-day program. During the solo reflections, which followed the know-how sessions and debriefs, participants reflected on what they had learned. After the “running the business” segments, participants reflected on their team dynamics. At the end of each day, BTS facilitated short discussions during which participants would share their reflections with the larger group.

To date, ten cohorts have gone through the program since its launch. Each cohort had 25 participants, all just below the C-suite.

At least ten more cohorts, each with a similar number of participants, plan to attend the program next year.

Results

Overall, the program was a great success. The CEO of the Italy division of the company concluded that the BTS program was “much better than any other session of its kind.” The CHRO and the executive team were enamored, and continued to communicate this in subsequent discussions. The organization also extended the original agreement to roll out even more programs.

In the application session section of the program, participants were asked to choose and commit to post-program actions related to on-the-job behaviors. Most frequently, they committed to actions around making informed decisions, prioritizing growth opportunities, and focusing on client relationships. These actions were aligned with the changes that the organization set out to make:

72% of participants stated or planned to have “tough conversations with colleagues about performance and/or with leaders about the business.”

74% of participants stated or planned to “focus on the broader client relationship and anywhere else you can solve risk for the client and align our value proposition.”

54% of participants stated or planned to “prioritize talent development, grow from within, and recruit externally when appropriate.”

Participant testimonials

“I thought this was the best training I’ve ever done. The learning from our team interactions was very illuminating. I loved the risk storming / pre-mortem methodology.”
“It was very useful for me, very genuine, and corresponded with reality. It was entertaining as well.”
“The simulation exercise was an outstanding learning tool. I would be very disappointed never to experience a similar exercise again AND would recommend that our company regularly use the software to measure learning.”
“The simulator tool was very comprehensive and intuitive. Enjoyed the cadence of mixing up sim time and organizational behavior group sessions in different teams. The feedback session was very useful. Excellent team of facilitators.”
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A large U.S.-based health insurance federation operating at the center of a complex national ecosystem, covering tens of millions of Americans, had already made a serious investment in enterprise AI. Leadership was not experimenting at the edges. They were leaning in.

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Solution

BTS partnered with the organization to move from AI access to AI application.

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Results

In five days, more than 100 leaders advanced 30 priority use cases tied directly to operational performance and competitive growth.

Early outcomes included:

  • Significant reduction in manual research synthesis and data preparation
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Just as important was the mindset shift.

Participants stopped viewing AI as a tool sitting outside their work and began treating it as embedded infrastructure for how work gets done.

“This showed immediate relevance to our work.”
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“We just accomplished in two hours what used to take us two months.”

In a U.S. health insurance market where insight, speed, and precision directly influence who wins and who grows, the organization moved decisively from AI access to AI advantage.

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How a global engineering firm transformed leadership behaviors to drive culture change, strategy execution, and long-term success.

Client need

A leading global aluminum manufacturer faced a pivotal challenge: how to create a unified, empowered workforce in a highly decentralized organization. Each business unit operated autonomously, making it difficult to align global learning with local needs. The company recognized the need for enterprise-wide development programs that supported its business and HR strategies while preserving local flexibility.

To meet this challenge, the organization launched a Corporate Learning University—a multi-year initiative to transform its approach to employee development. BTS collaborated with HR and L&D leaders to co-create a comprehensive portfolio of programs tailored to different roles and career stages across the enterprise.

Solution

The transformation began with a clear vision: align learning with strategic outcomes to unify and empower a decentralized workforce. BTS worked with the company to create an impact map linking business priorities—financial performance, safety, and employee engagement—to the behaviors and skills required at each level of the organization.

The map established three key learning objectives:

  • Foster unity and collaboration across a decentralized structure.
  • Strengthen business acumen to improve contribution and decision-making.
  • Build a shared leadership identity aligned with company values.

Using these objectives as a foundation, BTS and the client designed programs for every stage of the employee journey.

For mid-level leaders, a nine-month Leadership Development Program combined two in-depth workshops with an online learning journey:

  • Leading Self: Introduced Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers framework, enabling leaders to expand their teams’ capacity through role-plays and practical exercises.
  • Leading the Business: A three-day custom business simulation where participants acted as CEOs, balancing profitability, safety, and customer satisfaction across simulated fiscal years.

The learning ecosystem expanded beyond mid-level management to include: Frontline leader training focused on operational excellence and people management.

Executive development sessions designed for senior leaders to strengthen strategic alignment and culture building.

By embedding strategy directly into every program, the company built a cohesive, enterprise-wide learning culture that reinforced leadership capability, collaboration, and business impact.

Results

The co-created programs delivered measurable, strategic outcomes across safety, engagement, and financial performance.

Key results included:

  • Financial performance: Optimized production schedules and reduced inventory, improving cash flow.
  • Operational efficiency: Empowered managers to focus on asset utilization and controllable budget items.
  • Cultural transformation: Embedded the Multipliers framework to drive collaboration, daily CapEx reviews, and safety-oriented onboarding for new hires.
  • Leadership excellence: Increased coaching and feedback frequency, improving communication and alignment across teams.

These initiatives not only elevated employee engagement but also positioned the company as an industry leader in workplace culture and performance.

By integrating business and HR strategy into a unified learning ecosystem, BTS helped the manufacturer achieve its vision of becoming the most exciting place to work and invest—demonstrating the power of tailored, results-driven leadership development.

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Discover how a leading snack company turned Revenue Growth Management into a powerful tool for growth, agility, and profitability.

Client need

The snack industry is undergoing a profound shift. Changing consumer preferences, increased focus on sustainability, and the dominance of digital engagement are transforming how brands operate. For a leading multinational snack company, incremental adjustments were no longer sufficient. They needed a bold, strategic transformation in how Revenue Growth Management (RGM) was deployed across the organization to stay competitive in this evolving landscape.

The company recognized that to grow sustainably, they needed to equip their teams with the skills to drive stronger insights and greater agility. It wasn’t just about optimizing operations—it was about empowering employees to make data-driven decisions that would:

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Solution

The organization partnered with BTS to design a comprehensive program aimed at building Revenue Growth Management competencies and aligning team members with the company's new RGM strategy and execution. This long-term investment focused on equipping employees at all levels with the skills needed to navigate a complex and competitive market.

The program consisted of three levels of courses, with each level tailored to the participants’ roles within the company. These levels ranged from foundational RGM concepts to specialized, hands-on learning experiences:

Level 1 and Level 2 courses included:

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  • Two self-paced modules where leaders engaged with real-world shopper scenarios, reinforcing their understanding of smart pricing, price pack architecture, investment optimization and budget allocation by customer.
  • Practical lessons on managing product portfolios and maximizing profitability, designed to connect employees' day-to-day roles with broader organizational objectives.

Level 3 advanced certification for senior leaders involved a deeper level of mastery through a two-day simulated experience:

  • Participants completed pre-work, incorporating research data and strategic insights from the first two levels.
  • Teams developed fictitious business plans in a controlled, risk-free environment, allowing them to apply new skills and test strategies in real time.
  • Leaders built a strategic PPA to foster long-term RGM thinking.
  • A final application assessment judged by a panel of facilitators, evaluating the participants' ability to drive desired business outcomes.

The Level 1 and 2 courses were delivered virtually via Workday, enabling the project team to track key metrics and engagement in real time. The Level 3 course was delivered in person at a global summit. To ensure maximum impact, local market leaders played an active role in tailoring communication and engagement plans, targeting regional business units effectively.

Results

The impact of the Level 1 and 2 programs were immediate and measurable. Just two weeks after completing their courses, participants were tested on their learning, and nearly all of them met or exceeded the certification threshold:

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  • The program achieved a 98.5% average pass rate, with the remaining 25% representing those still in the process of completing their certification.

Participants who completed the program reported:

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  • Enhanced ability to contribute to both organizational success and their own professional development.

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Client need

A large U.S.-based health insurance federation operating at the center of a complex national ecosystem, covering tens of millions of Americans, had already made a serious investment in enterprise AI. Leadership was not experimenting at the edges. They were leaning in.

Capability and commitment existed across the organization, but unevenly. Some teams were already pushing boundaries. Others hadn't yet found their footing. Most of the gains had come in personal productivity. Valuable, but the core work itself had not yet fundamentally changed. The opportunity was to go deeper, to move from AI-assisted individuals to AI-reinvented workflows.

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The Medical Policy team was synthesizing evidence across hundreds of policies, working to keep pace with FDA approvals and evolving clinical guidelines. The work required rigor and judgment, and it also demanded repetitive synthesis that consumed days when it needed to take hours.

Market intelligence teams were reviewing competitor RFPs manually in markets where competitive pressure was tightening and millions of covered lives were at stake over the next several years. The opportunity was significant, but so was the risk of falling behind in insight and speed.

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Leadership understood that AI licenses alone would not create advantage. To compete in an increasingly analytics-driven insurance environment, expertise had to scale. Insight had to move faster. Teams needed to reinvent how core work happened.

Solution

BTS partnered with the organization to move from AI access to AI application.

Through a series of focused design sprints, intact teams worked on their highest-value workflows using our GROUNDING → EXPERIMENT → BUILD → AMPLIFY methodology. The structure was simple and disciplined. Set context. Experiment quickly. Build against real work. Create a path to scale.

Participants brought their own work into the room. Medical policy frameworks. RFP responses. Threat intelligence reports. Actuarial data pipelines.

No generic demos. No abstract hypotheticals.

The turning point came when AI began working on their actual content.

Research syntheses that previously took days began structuring themselves in minutes. Competitive RFP analysis that once required manual review surfaced patterns instantly. Data transformation workflows streamlined in real time.

Skepticism shifted to possibility.

We positioned AI as augmentation, not replacement. In a sector defined by professional expertise and accountability, that framing was critical. The goal was to elevate expert judgment, not automate it away.

Some teams left with working prototypes. Others left with detailed blueprints aligned to enterprise privacy and security requirements. The IT Team took away a re-prioritized set of additional tools to incorporate into a HIPAA-compliant environment. Every team left with a redesigned workflow.

Results

In five days, more than 100 leaders advanced 30 priority use cases tied directly to operational performance and competitive growth.

Early outcomes included:

  • Significant reduction in manual research synthesis and data preparation
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  • A scalable model for continued AI-enabled workflow reinvention

Just as important was the mindset shift.

Participants stopped viewing AI as a tool sitting outside their work and began treating it as embedded infrastructure for how work gets done.

“This showed immediate relevance to our work.”
“Now I understand what’s actually possible for my team.”
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In a U.S. health insurance market where insight, speed, and precision directly influence who wins and who grows, the organization moved decisively from AI access to AI advantage.

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Promoting safety in transportation through cultural transformation
BTS partnered with a Spanish railway embed safety into its culture through a leadership program reaching 1,500 people.

Client need

Safety in the transportation industry has often been treated as a set of rules to follow and boxes to check. But one Spanish railway organization saw an opportunity to redefine safety as something far greater, a core value embedded into the culture of their company at every level.

This bold vision demanded more than compliance. It required a cultural transformation to challenge outdated behaviors, inspire teams, and empower leaders to embrace and model a safety-first mindset. For years, the organization had been working to foster a culture that prioritized protection over profit, setting new behavioral standards across the industry.

To accelerate this shift, the organization partnered with BTS to design a leadership development program that dismantled old practices and equipped leaders with the tools, insights, and behaviors needed to bring their vision to life.

  • Deconstruct existing mindsets to enable cohesive change.
  • Identify barriers preventing progress.
  • Equip leaders with practical behavioral knowledge and tools.

Solution

BTS partnered with the organization to design a leadership journey that would reshape not just processes but perspectives, fostering a workplace where physical and psychological safety were paramount. Over eight months, the project team conducted interviews with leaders and focus groups to uncover critical behavioral insights and tailor the program to the organization’s unique needs.

Participants explored essential themes, including:

  • Embedding safety into daily decision-making.
  • Cultivating greater awareness of safety risks.
  • Understanding the influence of their leadership on safety outcomes.
  • Leading by example to set a cultural standard.
  • Building trust, commitment, and open communication within their teams.

The program unfolded in three distinct phases to drive lasting behavioral change:

  1. Workshop preparation
    Participants began with a self-assessment to uncover personal “safety blind spots” and mind traps. This phase, delivered through a custom online platform, helped leaders reflect on their current practices and prepare for the transformational journey ahead.
  1. Safety workshop
    The one-day, immersive workshop was designed to spark deep conversations about safety culture, challenge ingrained mindsets, and equip participants with actionable strategies for change. Leaders engaged in real-world scenarios to explore the implications of their decisions and practice new behaviors. The day concluded with collaborative debrief sessions, leaving participants with practical tools to implement their insights immediately.
  2. Implementation in action
    To sustain momentum, the post-workshop phase extended over six months, offering six targeted activities. These activities reinforced key lessons, encouraged team collaboration, and provided ongoing support for integrating safety-first behaviors into daily routines.

The leadership program was delivered to 1500 participants over 66 workshops in seven locations across Spain.

Results

To measure results, the project team created a resource map evaluating progress.  

Average completion rate of Activities One–Three: 57 percent. (One: 78.21%; Two: 53. 01%; Three: 40.57%)

A post-workshop survey was sent to participants, reporting on the following metrics:

  • Average satisfaction — 4.7/5.
  • Trainer’s evaluation — 4.9/5.
  • NPS — 82 percent.
  • “Saw improvement in safety alignment” — 93 percent.
  • “Integrated safety tools in daily roles” — 82 percent.
  • “Identified new initiatives for improving safety” — 77 percent.
  • “Mitigated team/peer mind traps” — 93 percent.
  • “More aware of risk in daily roles” — 98 percent.
  • “Identified a normalized risk to work on” — 92 percent.

Testimonials

  • “Many of the methodologies and tools not only help to improve safety but can also be used to improve operational or organizational processes.”
  • “It has put us in front of the mirror of how we are today in terms of safety culture, opening our eyes to our development areas. Very participative and practical.”

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Translating at scale: Building a better client experience with AI on the team
See how BTS uses AI to transform translation and localization to deliver faster, smarter, and more personal client experiences worldwide.

Over the years, BTS has expanded its global footprint through thoughtful acquisitions and collaborations, bringing new creative capabilities and local expertise into the fold. From digital design studios to leadership consultancies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, we’ve built a community that blends shared values with local perspective. That diversity has become one of our greatest strengths, shaping how we design and deliver learning that feels deeply personal everywhere we work.

Whether someone is in a leadership journey in Singapore, a coaching program in São Paulo, or a strategy workshop in Stockholm, the goal is always the same: to make the experience feel like it was made just for them.

Many of those experiences live on Momenta, BTS’s digital experience platform, powering journeys like Coaching, Multipliers, and other core programs.

As those experiences grew, so did the need for nuance. Every journey had to feel local, not just sound translated. Tone, humor, and cultural context have always been central to the BTS approach, and as demand expanded across formats and regions, our translation model was ready for its next evolution.

In early 2024, the team began exploring how AI could help. Rather than treating technology as the destination, we saw it as a catalyst, a way to rethink translation and deliver richer, more customized client experiences at scale. That curiosity sparked one of BTS’s most ambitious AI-first experiments, led by our Global Product Enablement Function team in partnership with our global network of linguists and translators.

Shifting to AI-first

The next step was finding the right place to experiment. Enter Phrase, a cloud-based translation management platform that quickly became our test lab. Phrase brings every part of the translation process into one place, from machine translation engines to human review, terminology management, and workflow tracking. It gives our linguists, designers, and project teams a shared space to collaborate, test ideas, and learn.

Over the next few months, two key discoveries reshaped how we think about translation, and ultimately, how we work.

Key discovery 1: Making AI a teammate

We began with a clear goal: make translation faster and more consistent. Using Phrase, AI handled the first drafts while our linguists refined them. Quickly, we realized there was potential for AI-value that went far beyond speed.  

With AI completing the first 80% of the work in a fraction of the time, our linguists could focus on what matters most: nuance, tone, and cultural resonance. The relationship evolved from oversight to collaboration, AI structured and scaled, humans shaped and elevated.

The result was more than efficiency. It was better work, created by people and technology learning to amplify each other.

Key discovery 2: Turning a roadblock into a redesign

Next came a design challenge. Phrase, like most translation tools, struggled with text embedded in graphics, a hallmark of many BTS learning experiences. Instead of forcing the tool to adapt, we changed how we created.

We began designing with translation in mind: simplifying visuals, reducing text, and using modular components that could flex across languages. The constraint sparked better design, easier to scale, more consistent, and more inclusive for every audience.

Key discovery 3: Integrating systems for scale

With people, AI, and design in sync, the last barrier was process. Managing translations between Phrase and Momenta still required manual effort.

To fix that, we built an API integration linking the two platforms. Now, files move automatically, progress is tracked in real time, and everything stays connected.

That integration turned our workflow into a unified ecosystem, fast, transparent, and ready to scale globally.

Business impact

Just 18 months ago, our translation reviews lived in double-column Word docs. Today, we work in a fully connected, AI-first ecosystem. Each project feeds the next, refining prompts, tone profiles, and design patterns, so our translation process keeps getting faster, smarter, and more aligned with BTS’s voice.

Speed and quality. Translation cycles that once took months now wrap up in weeks, cutting turnaround times by over 40%. Phrase’s tools and AI-powered workflows accelerate production while maintaining quality through expert-approved reuse, glossaries, and automated quality checks. Even complex formats like videos and animations are localized faster, with AI supporting linguists at every step.

Smarter workflows. The integration between Momenta and Phrase automates project transfers and tracking, saving an estimated 2.5 hours per project. Teams across language, digital, and project management now collaborate in one streamlined environment.

Human focus. Our linguists remain the engine of quality and innovation. With AI managing repetitive tasks, they focus on nuance and meaning, and go further by creating specialized GPTs, training databases, and testing translation engines to continually raise the bar.