Digital & Commerce Operating Model Design

Operating models are rarely designed to be deliberately disadvantageous; they are optimised for a business reality that was correct at the time of their creation. What has changed are the requirements: cross-channel management, data-driven decision-making processes and the operational integration of AI call for a different organisational logic, different responsibilities and different management instruments. Companies that recognise this need for adaptation face a structural question: not whether the target operating model (TOM) needs to evolve, but how to achieve this without destabilising ongoing operations.

Context and relevance

The requirements placed on commerce organisations have changed fundamentally in recent years. Cross-channel management, data-driven decision-making processes and the integration of AI into operational workflows are no longer optional add-ons, but preconditions for efficient and therefore competitive action. Companies that fail to evolve their operating model accordingly accept structural disadvantages that intensify over time.

This gap becomes particularly visible in three areas:

1. Decisions are made more slowly than the market allows, because responsibilities and management logic are not designed for data-driven working.
2. Automation potential remains untapped, because processes are not prepared for AI integration.
3. And the scalability of digital business models runs into organisational limits that cannot be solved by technology alone.

Our approach

FOSTEC & Company’s approach structures the topic along three modules that build on one another, addressing different decision-making situations and deployable individually as well as in combination (Figure 1: Three perspectives on the digital operating model – diagnosis, target picture and implementation strategy). The Digital Maturity & Disruption Assessment creates the diagnostic basis: a precise positioning that shows where the operating model stands today and where the greatest structural gaps lie. On this basis, the Target Operating Model Design develops a commerce- and AI-native target picture, not a generic framework, but an operating model tailored to the organisation’s specific requirements, with a clear organisational logic, management structure and business-case anchoring. The Digital Transformation Strategy translates this target picture into a prioritised roadmap underpinned by resource logic and a milestone structure, as a management instrument for the transformation during ongoing operations.

Figure 1: Three perspectives on the digital operating model – diagnosis, target picture and implementation strategy

What sets the FOSTEC approach apart lies in two features.

First, the target picture is consistently designed to be commerce- and AI-native: the aim is not to add digital layers to a generic target operating model, but to develop an operating model from the outset that is geared to the specific requirements of data-driven commerce organisations.

Second, the approach remains consistently implementation-oriented: every target picture is underpinned by a robust business case, and every roadmap by a resource logic and milestone structure that can be managed during ongoing operations.

Results and impact

Depending on the entry point, clients receive a fact-based positioning of their operating model, an operationally concretised target picture with business-case anchoring, or a prioritised transformation roadmap with resource logic and milestone structure – and, in full scope, all three as an end-to-end basis for the organisation’s further development. This provides orientation in a decision-making situation that is often characterised by competing priorities and unclear dependencies, reduces transformation risks through structured prioritisation and enables management teams to justify operating-model decisions transparently to investors and supervisory bodies. For PE investors, a robust target operating model additionally creates a quantifiable basis for value-creation planning within the scope of Commercial Due Diligence and Post-Merger Integration.

Position within the service portfolio

The Digital & Operational Performance portfolio comprises services of varying scope and focus. FOSTEC & Company offers analysis of the following business aspects:

• Digital & Commerce Operating Model Design
• Strategic Cost Reduction Program
• AI-Powered Process & Workflow Automation
• Commerce Operations & Supply Chain Performance
• Data-Driven Performance Steering
• Technology Efficiency & Platform Optimisation
• Intelligent Data & Analytics Foundation

Let us assess in an introductory conversation which structural fields of action exist for your operating model – data-driven, pragmatic and with clear, actionable recommendations.