Success Stories

€10 million released

The Challenge

• Manufacturer’s high-value product was rejected several times by customer, despite it being tested before dispatch.
• The reason for the rejection was unclear.
• Stakeholders in Canada, France and Switzerland.

Scatterwork Intervention

• Active weekend telephone support for specialists following an on-site workshop, recommended planning the problem solving stage as a sub-project and getting agreement to the approach.

The Outcome

• The client agreed to the problem solving approach first, as a result of which the actual problem was identified: the receiving company did not want to share some of the test results because of intellectual property issues, but did not communicate this to the supplier.
• The systematic project approach was implemented to deliver a solution acceptable to both sides, so unblocking turnover valued over €10m.

Graduate Chemist responsibilities enhanced

The Challenge

• The client provides drug development services for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries, typically scaling up laboratory methods to deliver industrial product quantities.
• The objective was to increase the project skills of graduate Development Chemists of 2 – 3 years standing, to enable them to take on progressively larger responsibilities, not only for their own work but also for that of others.

Scatterwork Intervention

• A series of customised training programs was devised and delivered on-site to several cohorts of chemists, nearly all of whom held doctoral qualifications.

The Outcome

• This training improved the overall project maturity within the company, allowing the participants to take on larger responsibilities
• It displaced more generic project training which took more time, while being less targeted to the company environment.
• It also reached a significantly greater participation among the project community.

50% of product registration costs transferred to customers

The Challenge

• A global supplier of products to the Chinese market had difficulty penetrating the regulatory environment.
• The partners and distributors passed on more challenges to the supplier than could be responded to and supported.
• The supplier identified shared costs for product registration as a possible solution.

Scatterwork Intervention

• The WHAT was separated from the WHY during a 2 day workshop and achievable deliverables were identified.

The Outcome

• A detailed and realistic action plan to develop a Product Registration Support Process, to be offered to the customer on the basis of shared funding.
• Review of the critical path made it possible to reschedule to avoid major holidays (Christmas, Easter), so increasing the chances of successful implementation.

Progress advanced by 20 weeks

The Challenge

• A manufacturer in France had difficulties in delivering according to schedule, so suffering a loss of credibility with the customer.
• The plan was to focus on deliveries over several months, to prepare the ground for improved relationships, then to encourage “pull” from the customer’s customers. 

Scatterwork Intervention

• During online remote coaching following a workshop, the situation was systematically analysed.

The Outcome

• The client realised that relations with the customer’s customers were not impacted by the track record, so the effort to encourage “pull” could be started 20 weeks earlier than originally planned.