Breaking Down Silos, Not Just Balancing Workloads
In most corporate groups, each subsidiary operates its own service team, builds its own demand forecasts, and plans its own capacity. That’s understandable, businesses want autonomy. But from a group perspective, this leads to duplication, underutilization, and ultimately, missed opportunity. What if you could step back and see the full picture?
With a solution like IFS WISE, which is built specifically for service-centric organizations, you can. It gives service leaders the ability to assess capacity not just within an individual business, but across a portfolio, bringing new clarity to shared resources, overlapping skillsets, and regional availability. With IFS WISE, and it’s wider AI optimized scheduling capabilities, you can prepare strategically long-term whilst becoming successful in the operational short-term.
Imagine the Value of Workforce Flexibility
Let’s think about this in practical terms. Suppose an organization is forecasting a seasonal spike in one of its diagnostics businesses. Another subsidiary, just a few miles away, is in a trough, with excess capacity. Traditionally, each business would manage its workforce in isolation, maybe hiring temps on one side while techs sit idle on the other.
But what if, with one planning model, you could instantly see that excess capacity and move qualified techs across entities? Now you’ve filled the demand, avoided unnecessary hiring, and kept utilization high, all without sacrificing service levels.
This isn’t theory. This is the kind of scenario modelling IFS WISE enables. By running “what-if” simulations across the full portfolio, you can proactively plan transfers, training, or reassignments based on projected demand, technician skills, and geographic proximity.
Skill Matching at Scale
One of the biggest challenges in cross-portfolio workforce planning is ensuring technicians are qualified for the work. But this is where a centralized capacity planning approach shines.
IFS WISE allows you to map technician skillsets to asset types and service needs across business units. That way, when you need to shift resources, you know who can hit the ground running, and where targeted training could fill the gap.
Instead of guessing or assuming, you’re working with real, granular data. You’re building a shared workforce that’s both flexible and future ready.
A CFO’s Dream: Cost Savings Without Compromise
Let’s not forget the financial side of this. When you break down planning silos, you start to uncover enormous efficiencies:
- Lower labor costs by minimizing overcapacity and reactive hiring
- Reduced travel costs by optimizing assignments across geographies
- Higher utilization rates through smarter regional balancing
- Faster time-to-value training investments by aligning them to actual install base needs
In an era of tight margins and increasing service expectations, that’s not just operationally smart, it’s strategically vital.
The Path Forward: From Decentralized to Dynamic
To be clear, this isn’t about centralizing everything or removing autonomy from portfolio companies. It’s about enabling collaboration and smarter decision-making through data and modelling. It’s about giving field service leaders, across subsidiaries, the tools they need to see beyond their silo, and the freedom to act when the numbers make sense.
In a world where speed and adaptability define success, the true advantage belongs to those who can seamlessly scale their workforce at a moment’s notice.
If you manage a portfolio of service businesses, your greatest untapped asset might already be on the payroll. With intelligent capacity planning across your group, you’re not just allocating labor, you’re orchestrating a symphony of shared capability. Delivering maximum value from every technician, every mile, every job.
SOURCE: Raymond Martin ( 2025 July 22) Unlocking the Power of the Portfolio: Rethinking Capacity Planning Across Subsidiaries.IFS Blog. https://blog.ifs.com/2025/07/unlocking-the-power-of-the-portfolio-rethinking-capacity-planning-across-subsidiaries
