Strategic Management Solutions Inducted Into INFORMS Franz Edelman Academy

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Strategic Management Solutions was inducted as a member of the Franz Edelman Academy at the annual Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Edelman Awards Gala held last week in Phoenix, Arizona. The Edelman Academy is a select group of organizations honored as major contributors to finalists in the Franz Edelman competition, an annual competition recognizing outstanding organizational achievement in the practice of Operations Research.

The nomination was for Strategic Management Solutions' work on product portfolio management at Hewlett-Packard (HP), performed in collaboration with HP's Strategic Planning and Modeling (SPaM) team. Their contributions, in conjunction with groundbreaking research by HP Labs and the implementation efforts of numerous representatives from HP's business units, enabled dramatic improvements in HP's approach to new product creation and product line management, impacting all of HP’s business groups.

The Edelman competition, known as the "World Series of Operations Research", showcases analytics applications that have had major impacts on their client organizations. Six finalist organizations - HP, IBM, Marriott International, CSX Railway, Norske Skog, and Zara – presented their entries to the INFORMS judging panel in Phoenix on April 27^th. HP was selected the first-place winner, marking the first time that HP won the award in the 38-year history of the competition. More information about the 2009 INFORMS Edelman Competition is available at http://www.informs.org/article.php?id=1544.

The product portfolio management achievements at Hewlett-Packard involved the use of Operations Research techniques to model the cost and revenue impacts of individual orderable items in HP's product lineup, which includes over 8,000,000 possible configure-to-order combinations in its desktop and notebook PC product lines alone. Strategic Management Solutions supported these efforts through co-development of a framework for evaluating the complexity-adjusted return on investment (ROI) of new product proposals, implementation-focused consulting engagements with HP business units, and customized training resources.

To date, applications of the complexity ROI framework, and of the Revenue Coverage Optimization tool developed by HP Labs, have resulted in over $500 Million in bottom line profit impact across HP, as well as a streamlined product offering, improved execution, increased customer satisfaction, and a host of other benefits.

The winning presentation was given by Kathy Chou, Vice President of Worldwide Commercial Sales for HP's Systems Group, Julie Ward, Principal Scientist in HP Labs’ Business Optimization Laboratory, and Chris Fry, Managing Director at Strategic Management Solutions.

About Strategic Management Solutions

Strategic Management Solutions is a management consulting firm specializing in applications of business analytics and management science to critical business problems in the areas of global supply chain strategy, product complexity management, and pricing. More information about Strategic Management Solutions is available at www.strategicmgmtsolutions.com.