CASE STUDY: LEAD TO CASH TRANSFORMATION
From 8 Teams to 25.
One Rhythm.
A Lead to Cash agile transformation case study: how a global data center company moved about 350 people out of functional silos and onto a single Solution Train to replace the platform that runs its entire Lead to Cash process.
“At the beginning of our transformation, the team lacked confidence that they could deliver on the targeted schedule; by our second PI Planning event, nearly everyone was certain that they would deliver on even more ambitious goals.”
Director, Digital Transformation, Global Data Center CompanyAT A GLANCE
A program that had failed before, organized to finish.
Client: Fortune 500 global data center company
Program: Replace an end of life platform across the full Lead to Cash process, from leads and opportunities through quoting, ordering, fulfillment, billing, and revenue management
SIG role: Dr. Josh Stephens, SAFe coach and trainer, paired with the client’s Release Train Engineer
Timeline: Launched mid 2024, scheduled to finish mid 2027
BY THE NUMBERS
8 teams to about 25
Grown in stages as the scope expanded, all on the same cadence.
3 Agile Release Trains
Combined into one Solution Train covering the full Lead to Cash process.
About 350 people
Roughly 250 IT and 100 business team members, reorganized from functional silos into domain teams.
Quarterly PI Planning
Every team planning and forecasting together, every quarter.
THE CHALLENGE
A platform being shut off. Teams built around the wrong lines.
The organization ran its entire Quote to Cash process on a single platform that was outdated and being sunset by the vendor. Staying put was not an option. Earlier attempts to migrate off it had been made more than once, and each one had failed.
Part of the reason was how the work was organized. Team members were grouped by technical function, not by business domain. That made dependencies hard to manage, kept business context away from the people building the solution, and made the overall program very difficult to steer.
Slow to sell
The aging platform made it hard to bring products to market quickly.
A disjointed experience
The user experience broke down from one stage of Lead to Cash to the next.
Customization sprawl
Because the system did not work well, sales kept customizing products, which made it harder to bundle them into simpler packages.
Global complexity
Multiple sales channels, global accounts, and many languages to support.
Functional silos
Engineers grouped by technology, with business context living somewhere else.
A history of failure
Previous migration attempts had stalled, so confidence was low from the start.
WHAT WE DID
Organize around the business. Then grow on purpose.
We reorganized teams around business domains. Instead of grouping engineers by technology, each scrum team owned a business domain. Business team members joined those teams as product managers and product owners, working side by side with IT engineering. The people who understood the business and the people building the solution finally sat on the same team.
We launched one Agile Release Train first. The program started as Quote to Cash, covering quoting, products, pricing, sales, ordering, fulfillment, billing, and revenue management, with 8 teams on a single release train. Dr. Josh Stephens served as SAFe coach and trainer, paired with the client’s Release Train Engineer.
We expanded when the business asked for more. About six months in, leadership wanted to include the front of the process too: leads, contacts, accounts, territories, and opportunities. We stood up a second release train for Lead to Quote with 4 more domain teams, and the program became Lead to Cash.
We scaled to a Solution Train. As pre-sales, customer service, and other areas joined, the program grew by roughly 12 more teams. We combined everything into a single Solution Train made up of three Agile Release Trains and about 25 scrum teams.
We put everyone on the same rhythm. Every team, whether there were 8 or 25, started and ended sprints on the same day, sized stories the same way, and came together every quarter to plan and forecast what could be completed next. That shared rhythm extended beyond engineering to legal, finance, go to market teams, and operations.
THE RESULTS
The largest program in the organization, and the most visible.
About 350 people out of silos. Roughly 250 IT and 100 business team members moved from a traditional, siloed way of working into domain teams that own their part of Lead to Cash from end to end.
Confidence turned around fast. At the start, teams doubted they could hit the targeted schedule. By the second PI Planning event, nearly everyone was confident they could deliver on even more ambitious goals.
One view of a very large program. With every team on the same cadence and planning together each quarter, leadership could see what work was getting done across several hundred people. For a program this important, that visibility was one of the most valuable outcomes.
A structure built to scale. The Solution Train is now delivering by product line and by geographic region, which is how a global company with many languages and markets has to roll out a platform like this.
It was not easy, and we will not pretend it was. An agile approach to a fixed platform deadline created real tension around timelines and scope, especially with executive pressure to finish more, sooner. Working through that tension in the open, quarter by quarter, is a large part of why the program kept moving where earlier attempts had stalled. At the time our engagement ended, it was the largest program running in the organization, and it remains on track to finish in mid 2027.
IN THEIR WORDS
From the leaders who went through it with us.
“Josh is patient yet firm, guiding the team toward best-in-class practices and exemplary performance within only a few short months. At the beginning of our transformation, the team lacked confidence that they could deliver on the targeted schedule; by our second PI Planning event, nearly everyone was certain that they would deliver on even more ambitious goals.”
Director, Digital Transformation
Global Data Center Company
“Under Josh’s guidance, we saw a remarkable increase in our delivery speed and team morale. His training workshops were engaging and practical, providing us with tools and strategies that we are now rolling out to additional teams in our organization.”
Director, Digital Transformation
Global Data Center Company
“The team was nearly crying with relief from the clarity that Stephens Insight Group provided!”
VP, Data Center Services
Global Fortune 500
Large platform programs rarely fail because of the technology. They fail because hundreds of people are working to different rhythms, organized around the wrong lines. Fix that, and even a program that has failed before can move.
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