Case study · 2022 – todayZones: a transformation engine, built inside a $3B company
A $3B IT solutions provider set out to triple its business in five years. Growth alone can't do that; it takes acquisitions, and an operating foundation able to absorb them — which twenty years of processes and systems couldn't provide. Four years on: a center of its own in Islamabad, 70+ people, four systems in daily use, and the core platform going live in 2027.
- Client
- Zones LLC, a $3B IT solutions provider
- Engagement
- March 2022 – today; two earlier engagements in 2018–19 and 2021
- Our role
- Program owner, with the Chief Digital Innovation Officer and the executive team
- The venture
- A center in Islamabad, opened July 2022, Zones' own
- Where it stands
- Core platform in final testing; handover being planned
What Zones wanted, and what stood in the way.
Tripling the business takes a growth-and-acquisitions model and an operational strategy, and only Zones can own either. The venture took on the operational strategy — and the pace to outrun competitors and the distributors selling around them.
How the process ran.
Step by step, in the order it happened — and what Zones has from each.
- 01
Define the business outcome
January – March 2022
We spent time with the Chief Digital Innovation Officer and the executive team to answer three questions. Where would growth come from? Who was winning, and how? What did the company need to do that it couldn't yet? The answer to the last question was four things: sell as one, change without an IT project, grow faster than headcount, absorb what it bought. Those four became the written outcome, approved in March 2022, and every quarter since has reported against them.
What we did
- Market and competitive analysis
- The business model and the five-year objectives
- The transformation, framed for the executive team
- A phased roadmap that put revenue levers first and the platform underneath
- The business case and the executive presentation
Zones LLC hasA written outcome the business owns — the operational foundation for scale — and the measure every quarter since has reported against.
- 02
Identify the people
From July 2022
The people the operational strategy needed weren't in the company, and couldn't be hired at home in the numbers required. So Zones built them. It opened a center in Islamabad in July 2022, as its own entity, and the venture has reported to Zones from the first day. The decision to build abroad was made on the work, the timeline, and what Zones wanted to own.
What we did
- The stakeholder map, with the Chief Digital Innovation Officer and the executive team
- The location case, the entity, the office and the operating model
- The center's leadership, hired
- Six months building the recruiting and training models
- University partnerships, campus recruiting, and assessments we wrote and people graded
- The senior hires who seed and mentor every cohort
Zones LLC hasA venture that reports to Zones — a center in Islamabad, 70+ people, and a recruiting pipeline that keeps running.
- 03
Measure and fix the process
From 2022
We sat with the people who handle product data, pricing and orders and mapped the work as it actually ran: who decided, who waited, where it stalled. We put numbers on it and set the baseline every quarter has been measured against. The gaps we found became the training curriculum.
What we did
- Process maps for product data, pricing, the catalog and order approvals
- The baseline, and the measures leadership sees every quarter
- A training curriculum built from the gaps, each course tied to a delivery
Zones LLC hasA measured baseline, the work mapped as it really runs, and a curriculum taught on real deliveries.
- 04
Build what the business needs
2022 – 2027
For each of the four capabilities we picked the solution, and built only where building was the advantage. Competitive pricing across the catalog came first, then single sign-on, catalog processing and global order approvals — each one in the business's hands within a quarter of finishing. Underneath them went the core platform: one governed source of product, service and subscription data, with the business rules out of the ERP and owned by the people who own the products.
What we did
- The architecture and the specifications
- The AI delivery framework, installed in Zones' repositories
- Every system built alongside the Islamabad team, in the same codebase, from the first sprint
- Designs and documentation Zones owns
Zones LLC hasFour systems in daily use, and the core platform in final testing.
- 05
Deliver every quarter
Every quarter since 2022
From the first year, every quarter put something in the business's hands — competitive pricing in 2023, then the login, the catalog feeds, the approvals — while the core platform went in underneath. Training and delivery were one workstream from the start: the cohorts built the increments, with senior mentors in the work beside them.
What we did
- Quarterly planning around one finished increment
- The 12-month program, rotating every cohort through the disciplines on live deliverables
- Senior mentors on every team, reviewing every delivery
- Demos to the business owners, and what they said taken into the next quarter
Zones LLC hasA finished increment every quarter since 2022, built by people who learned on the work that shipped.
- 06
Adjust continuously
2022 – today
Nothing about this ran on rails. The organization changed, the strategy shifted, and the plan moved with them — one cohort year was skipped, and the handover is being planned now. Every adjustment was made with senior leadership and measured against the outcome the executive team approved in 2022.
What we did
- Leadership reporting on impact, progress toward the outcome, and root causes
- The plan, revised with leadership as the strategy evolved
- A handover plan, with a named successor for every role we hold
- Roles handed over as the team is ready
Zones LLC hasA team that delivers global e-commerce on its own in 2027 — and a plan that has survived four years of change.
Four systems the business runs on today.
Each one a quarterly increment that reached the business while the core platform went in underneath.
Competitive price analysis
Pricing coverage across the catalog instead of a small subset of SKUs.
One login for customers and partners
Single sign-on across every Zones application.
Vendor feed processing
Daily vendor feeds taken in, validated and processed automatically.
Global order approvals
One way, worldwide, for customers to handle purchase-order approvals.
Delivered and trained, by phase.
Delivery and training ran as one workstream from 2022. This is what each phase produced.
- Start2022The center opens in Islamabad.The first cohort begins the 12-month program.
- Build2023 – 25Competitive pricing, single sign-on, catalog processing and order approvals reach the business.Three cohorts complete the program. One year is skipped when the plan changes.
- Now2026The core platform is in final testing.70+ people. The team runs delivery.
- Next2027The platform goes live.The team delivers global e-commerce on its own.
A $3B company now has a transformation engine of its own, and the operational foundation to scale on: a center in Islamabad, 70+ people it recruited and trained, four systems in daily use and the core platform going live in 2027. The next system — global e-commerce — the team delivers without us.