An Excellent Otis

1. Business Context/Key Business Drivers

OTIS Elevator was founded in 1853 by Elisha Graves. The multinational company is specialized in elevators, escalators and the maintenance of both. The subsidiary of UTC became a worldwide leader and some main competitors are Hitachi, Kinetek, KONE and Schindler.

Today the company is trying to switch from a manufacturing company to a service company and even become “the recognized leader in service excellence among all companies worldwide”

The main reason is that the company wants to differentiate itself from the many competitors by providing “total solutions to customers” . They try to build a competitive advantage especially as there is a high market pressure (strong competition) and the threat of entry of new competitors is high .

2. Initiative Objectives/Benefits

The key business objectives were: to stay a leader, improve operational effectiveness (reduce cycle times, ensure consistent delivery of quality products and services), harmonize the way the different companies were operating, implementing strategic responses by strategic systems in increasing profits.

The key business benefits were to reduce management layers and product failures and to improve the communication/information process within the different companies in order to save time and reduce costs. The company will benefit from a new perceived image, which will be an outstanding service company rather than an outstanding manufacturing company. Additionally OTIS will be able to look at their processes in an integrated way a no longer in individual ways .

3.Initiative challenges

The key challenges were that the whole culture of the company had to be changed, the many acquisitions brought very different products and operations to the company which had to be rationalized and harmonized, many of the employees still thought of Otis as a manufacturing company. As a lot of different departments were concerned very distinctive and specific advices had to be thought and communicated on what had to be changed. ELogistics had to face also several problems: eLogistics: The company having 20,000 PCs made it not easy to install the software on every PC and configurate them all properly, scaling the systems to be used by all of the field-installation, People need to be familiar with computers.

Another one was that it was a very complex change and as a lot of different departments were concerned (Project Proposal, Sales Processing, Order Fulfillment (CLCs), Field Installation, Closing activities, Information Technology) very distinctive and specific advices had to be thought and communicated on what had to be changed .

In general I would say good because the end results very more than satisfying. For example concerning the fact that people had to be familiar with PC’s