Kearney · Strategy · Easy · 20-30 min

Operating Model Redesign for an Energy Trading Arm

Operating Model Redesign for an Energy Trading Arm is an easy Kearney strategy case interview that runs 20-30 min. A global energy major's trading and supply arm has doubled headcount to 2,400 in five years. A strong answer works through 5 phases: Diagnose the ROC slip; Map the current org and find the duplications, blurred accountabilities, and capital approval bottlenecks; Choose the redesign principle; Decide the capital governance model; Sequence the redesign.

Last updated 2026-09-05

The brief

A global energy major's trading and supply arm has doubled headcount to 2,400 in five years. Two regional desks are increasingly fighting over the same flow. Return on capital has slipped from 28% to 17%. The COO wants a redesigned operating model that fixes accountability and capital efficiency without a redundancy bloodbath. You have eight weeks.

How to approach it

  1. Diagnose the ROC slip — is this capital intensity, mix shift, or operating leakage from the desk overlap
  2. Map the current org and find the duplications, blurred accountabilities, and capital approval bottlenecks
  3. Choose the redesign principle — by commodity, by region, by customer, or matrixed — with criteria
  4. Decide the capital governance model — single book, regional books with limits, what the desk head actually owns
  5. Sequence the redesign — what changes day 1, day 90, day 365, and what is reversible

What a strong answer does

  • Distinguishes ROC slip from headcount growth — they are not the same problem and may not have the same answer
  • Names the desk-overlap as the symptom, finds the upstream cause (capital limits, P&L attribution, geographic mandate)
  • Picks a redesign principle with an explicit trade — by commodity favours optimisation, by region favours customer intimacy, matrix favours nothing
  • Avoids the redundancy bloodbath by addressing capital governance first and headcount second
  • Lays out an itemised day-1 / day-90 / day-365 plan with what is reversible if it does not work

Red flags interviewers score down

  • Confuses headcount with capacity or accountability
  • Recommends a matrix without naming the tradeoffs
  • Touches headcount before fixing the capital governance
  • Provides a target operating model picture with no transition plan

Cases are written in each firm's style, written and reviewed by working consultants; they are not the firms' own published cases.

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