Previous Page
The Interview
Deal Maker of the Year Awards 2012
Ronald H Infosys to Acquire Lodestone
Ronald Hafner is Chief Executive Officer of Lodestone Management Consultants, now Infosys Lodestone. Lodestone, founded in 2005, has become a global business under his leadership, delivering high double-digit revenue growth.
Ronald Hafner has more than 20 years of experience advising multinational corporations on business and IT strategy. He began his career in 1988 at Price Waterhouse. In 1995 Mr. Hafner shifted to strategy consulting and joined McKinsey’s Zurich office. Upon returning to Price Waterhouse in 1997 he was elected partner. Within what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr. Hafner was responsible for the Consumer & Industrial Products unit comprising all consulting services – from Strategy to Implementation. He became partner in IBM Business Consulting Services as part of the acquisition of PwC’s Consulting practice. Ronald Hafner holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Basel/Switzerland.
structure? Q
Lodestone Management Consultants, headquartered in Zurich/Switzerland, is a global consulting firm advising international companies on strategy and process optimization as well as IT transformation. With a value-integration approach, Lodestone pursues a value-adding combination of management and IT consulting.
Operating under Lodestone Management Consultants – or in the future Infosys Lodestone –, all of the Lodestone subsidiaries worldwide are owned by the Lodestone Holding AG. The structure pre-acquisition can roughly be
Can you give an overview of Lodestone and its organisational
described as follows: Lodestone was established by former “Big 5” consultancy members with over 20 years’ experience in industry. The Company operates as a partnership, with four executive partners presiding over about 35 others spread across a range of geographies. The partner model was and is one of the fundamental success factors for the growth of Lodestone. This is not only reflected by the fact that the equity partners own Lodestone through their shares of the Holding but also through their role within the Company’s organisation and processes.
Geographically, Europe is clearly the focal point with strong presence in Switzerland and Germany (about 75% of net revenues), with global footprint to address needs of multinational clients.
Q
What are the main areas of Lodestone’s expertise?
Lodestone’s goal is to create sustainable value for its clients. By combining our consultants’ expertise, our ability to work in close partnership with our clients, and the active involvement of our senior leadership, we look beyond standard solutions to develop new insights, engage organizations, drive tangible results, and make companies more capable.
Our services integrate business and technical contributions. Anchored in a deep knowledge of core industry issues, Lodestone offers advice to international corporations on devising innovative business operating models, optimizing processes, creating a world-class IT function and implementing new technologies leveraging SAP.
Two examples: Responding to fiercer competition and increased costs pressures on
European health care systems Roche, a leading multinational healthcare company with annual revenues of more than CHF 40 billion, started a program to transform its operating model into one regionally harmonized model for its entire European operations. Lodestone delivered a key component of this transformation as consulting partner responsible for the design of harmonised processes supported by a new Finance Shared Service Center and the deployment of a project to consolidate the ERP landscape from eleven independent SAP installations into one.
With the chosen implementation approach (“revolutionary approach”), Roche was able to save costs by shortening the duration of the total program by nine months (30 instead of 39 months), with minimal business interruption and deployment costs. The program achieved a harmonized business model with a Shared Service Center in Central Europe supported by a standardized ERP platform requiring reduced maintenance, providing better visibility between business units, and leaner data management. By streamlining and simplifying its business model in Europe as well as reducing costs, the company has put itself in a stronger position for the future.
AGCO is the world’s largest manufacturer of tractors and agricultural equipment. Recognizing serious gaps in its overview of manufacturing processes, AGCO commissioned Lodestone to design and implement a pilot manufacturing execution system – Apriso’s Flexnet solution integrated with SAP – at a major manufacturing facility operated by its Fendt brand in Germany. AGCO was able to transform an inadequate paper-based system into a state-of-the-art machine and production data acquisition system automating all information flows in component manufacturing, increasing transparency and the availability of KPIs, and reducing error rates.
Partner & CEO of Lodestone Ma