Strategy to Execution
A shared operating model to unlock revenue through better collaboration
Background
We had developed a parenting strategy for a leading shipping transportation company and its subsidiaries. The parenting model mapped out growth drivers and a set of strategic synergies to unlock greater value between parent and subsidiaries. Among the synergies identified, one stood out for its immediate operational relevance: the way loading operations were run across overlapping service routes. With both the parent company and its subsidiary independently deploying their own loading teams on the same routes, there was a much more efficient opportunity to move from parallel operations to a shared one. Beyond strategy, the company brought us on to translate this strategic direction into action, starting with a focused pilot project at two of Indonesia’s busiest passenger ports.
Challenge
While the direction was clear on paper, the on-ground reality was far from ready. Loading operations had always been run independently, each entity's teams operated within their own lines of command (reporting to their own branch managers), with no shared standard operating procedure, KPI, or cost structure to guide a joint way of working. Bringing the two together also meant resolving questions neither entity had fully answered before:
who would lead the new shared teams
how compensation and cost-sharing would be structured,
how performance would be measured across two organizations instead of one.
Another was ensuring that every step had to be carefully documented and agreed upon to preserve good corporate governance between the two entities. There was a real risk of resistance, as for years both teams were used to operating independently and had no natural inclination to collaborate. Without a clear framework and hands-on support from all parties to navigate these dynamics, the synergy risked staying a strategic idea rather than becoming an operational reality.
Ideas
Result
Within just 4 weeks of going live, the pilot began showing measurable results, and more importantly, proved that a shared operating model between the two entities could work in practice, not just on paper.
Total revenue at the two pilot locations increased by Rp84.6 million up to Rp252.5 million (3.1% to 7.7%), driven purely by a more efficient loading process, with no additional capacity, routes, or pricing changes involved.
The pilot also generated potential HR cost saving up to Rp40 million per location per month for the subsidiary, since the operation would otherwise have required doubling headcount to deliver the same revenue increase.
The pilot earned buy-in at every level, from operational staff to the board of directors, which made rollout smoother than anticipated and validated the approach behind it.
The pilot generated a clear set of operational and administrative learnings, which we translated into a scheme for extending the shared loading model beyond the two pilot locations.
As of today, the shared loading model has been fully adopted across every branch where the parent company and its subsidiary operate on overlapping routes, turning what began as a two-location pilot into a standard way of working across the organization.
What started as a test of feasibility became proof: that strategy and execution, when paired with the right change management, can move quickly from idea to impact.
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