BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got
Business transformation is a strategy in itself, requiring commitment to significantly change what you’re doing. Step change requires smart solutions, not just a few adjustments around the edges. Uncomfortable for some, as it involves being really honest with yourself even admitting that what you’re doing isn’t getting the results. Good leadership requires a high degree of self awareness, the ability to be honest with yourself, and acceptance of others being honest with you.
We have experience across a wide range of programmes, from big picture core strategy, to very specific functional change.
Understanding how to implement transformation is highly critical as getting it wrong can be dangerous and damaging to the business. It needs to be approached in the right way to be effective.
“During the time I’ve known Andy he has been very successful in terms of business turnaround. His style has been to quickly identify opportunities and to get his team to buy in and create change. He is energetic, inclusive and empowering”
Nick Martin – MD Springfield Management Services
Transparency & trust
Nobody really likes the word “consultant” including us. They’re often seen as spies in the camp, lurking around taking pictures and secret notes or sitting in ivory towers churning out blue sky ideas. Most people are hard wired to be afraid of change and are naturally suspicious of this kind of activity. We do not work like stereotypical consultants, but engage as part of your own team. To gain traction and be successful, any transformation or change programme should be;
- built on absolute transparency and trust
We guarantee that we will work inclusively with your team and establish ourselves simply as temporary employees, who are;
- trustworthy, here to help and are accountable with them for results
In order for transformation to take place the people in the business need to;
- understand what’s going on, why it’s happening, and the results we’re expecting
- believe it makes sense
When people understand and think it makes sense they generally buy in, and give their commitment to help and be a part of it. Every successful transformation we’ve seen has involved a mobilization of the troops so a key part of our approach is the communication strategy needed to gain engagement. We never underestimate the knowledge of the people in the business – in most cases, the answers come from within.
Obviously we understand that certain types of programmes require a very high degree of confidentiality for obvious reasons, but generally the rule of transparency applies.
Engagement
Because it’s the real world, and you don’t have the resource, allow us to work with you and we will;
- provide the resource, know-how and facilitation required to drive a transformation programme.
- guarantee an honest, objective evaluation of your business and where we think you can do better. Honesty is absolutely crucial, and is sometimes the bit leadership find uncomfortable.
- never judge anybody, we simply establish facts based on our observations and use our experience to work openly with the team to build transformation strategies.
Execution
Poor execution is the single biggest failing in business. It’s amazing how many businesses know what they should be doing, have even written it in a plan, but fail to execute effectively. Transformation is 100% dependent on good execution.
- Our commitment is to work with you through the execution, to ensure the results are achieved.
Execution depends on accountability. Lack of accountability sits at the door of poor execution. Developing healthy accountability without a blame culture is highly important in achieving success. A safe environment of trust where people will contribute ideas and “have a go” is powerful in driving change. Feeling accountable but not being afraid of being blamed if something goes wrong is critical for people to contribute.
WHAT WILL BIGGER PICTURE DO?
► Bring Accountability
► Be someone who will listen and who you can trust
► Tell you the truth even when it’s uncomfortable
► Teach you to think differently about your business
► Help you see the “bigger picture” and get out of fire fighting mode
► Share years of knowledge and experience in practical advice
► Help make every part of your business more efficient
► Help you build the business you aspire to have
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU WITH BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION?
Strategy
General Business
Operational
Commercial
Re-structuring
Strategy doesn’t change every day, but it needs to be under constant review to ensure it’s still relevant. After all markets, customers, legislation and economic factors change and we need to be prepared to alter direction accordingly. On the exciting side, innovation creates opportunities to access new customers and markets, M&A opportunities come up along the way and a whole host of other strategic options cross the radar. Deciding what to do or not and if or how far to move away from core activity are all interesting and lively debates in most board rooms.
A business strategy review should be inclusive and thorough and we will work with you to undertake and facilitate this process. Through a process of individual and group exercises we will help make the process inclusive, fun, enlightening and powerful and help ensure options are viewed objectively and evaluated fairly as you build your strategy for the future.
Sometimes business just gets stuck in a rut. It’s ticking along but there’s nothing dynamic or exciting happening and it just needs a kick start again. Leadership would like to change but are often not even sure exactly what they need to change. That’s nothing to be ashamed of – recognising it and doing something about it is the first step in the transformation. A general business programme will provide you with a detailed health check of your entire business. It will;
- require commitment from the business to absolute openness and honesty, even if it’s uncomfortable and not what you want to hear
- assess in detail the effectiveness of the individual functions and the overall business.
- identify opportunities for change and improvement
The findings are guaranteed to identify areas of opportunity from which we can build a transformation programme.
Operational transformation, particularly in manufacturing is often where there is low hanging fruit. Labour inefficiency creeps in, material utilisation and waste slips and financial performance declines. In this scenario product quality usually suffers too and before long your customer relationships are suffering. In our experience operational issues quickly lead to commercial ones which need rapid solutions.
Perhaps you’re faced with a bigger strategic challenge like footprint consolidation, capacity expansion , or even considering more wide reaching strategies like out-sourcing manufacturing.
We have vast experience across the manufacturing spectrum and have delivered transformation programmes in all of these areas both in the UK and overseas. We’re confident we have the experience and knowledge to help you whatever operational challenge you have.
Commercial challenges come in all shapes and sizes and we’ve worked with most of them. Understanding gross margin sits at the core of every business and is usually our starting point in commercial transformation. Knowing exactly where the margin in your business comes from is fundamental is deciding on any programme of change. Creating transparency and analysis of margin very quickly identifies the change levers that need to be pulled. Gaining visibility of the performance of individual sectors, customers and products is critical in delivering improved results.
We’re highly experienced in commercial evaluation and developing strategies to build a strong commercial platform.
Re-structuring is one of the more sensitive and sometimes painful transformations, but difficult as it can be, ensuring structure is lean and effective needs to be a part of the ongoing review of every business. We have a wide range of re-structuring experience from footprint consolidation to less extensive cost reduction programmes.