HAL Inc. is a large IT firm of about 150,000 employees with annual revenues of approximately $20 billion. It is in the business of providing hardware, software, systems, data storage, and data management expertise to a broad spectrum of international organizations. HAL was a recognized and widely admired company for most of the last two decades. However, after years of growth and profit, it is experiencing market contraction and declining financial results.

The CEO challenged the executives to concentrate on providing complete solutions to clients, stressing that in the present competitive market, it was difficult for customers to distinguish products from one another and so customer service was becoming the key to competitive advantage. After an initial meeting to discuss the future and broad direction of HAL, it was decided to plan out the flow of this large change project. In the past, the company had encountered difficulties implementing its strategic initiatives and was determined to do better this time. You are a member of this planning team.