Using ABM to redesign corporate staff units

This article focuses on the use of activity‐based management (ABM) theory for the control and the redesign of the centralized units of a large multinational company operating in the chemical sector. To this aim, ABM has been adapted to the peculiar characteristics of support services. In particular, greater emphasis has been put on the analysis of the nature of activity drivers, and on cross‐functional processes. The analysis was structured in two s.tif: the first ended with the identification of some hypotheses of intervention on single activities aimed at eliminating redundancies, duplications, and, more generally, at improving their efficiency. The subsequent analysis of cross‐functional links focused on the redesign of the most pervasive processes, which led to important reductions in general costs, estimated from 15 to 30 per cent, according to the specific process. The last part of the article illustrates the early results of the implementation phase, with particular emphasis on organizational and cultural issues.