A consolidated service network company

Opportunity

The executive leadership of a network roll-up of connecting, overlapping regional service businesses sought to rigorously evaluate investments and strategic marketplace and policy decisions.

Approach

Princeton Consultants worked with the the organization's Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to create and validate a detailed simulation model of the business, using actual operational data at a highly granular level. We then acted as both operational and strategy consultants, answering a wide range of questions regarding proposed changes and improvements.

To achieve this level of decision making, we applied Optimizing-Simulation technology that recommends the ideal combination of multiple, simultaneous parameters or policies.

Challenges

• Human in the Loop: the creation, calibration, and validation of the models required significant input from SMEs, many of whom were not privy to the exact details of the confidential areas of investigation that executive management was considering
• Competitive Gaming, Stochastic: External factors, such as head-to-head competitors reacting to shifts in pricing and service, combined with internal factors such as ongoing labor union negotiations, made optimization the ideal, necessary tool to offer optimized recommendations to executive management based on the likelihood of many different potential scenarios

Results

The use of optimizing simulation allowed executive management to confidently make decisive, positive business decisions much faster than was thought possible.  It showed where investments would pay for themselves and where spin-offs were the best course.