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COMPETENCY BASED CASE STUDIES

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COMPETENCY – Managing Change – The Power of Brand

Client – A Global Professional Services Company

Team – lead by Managing Consultant Ingrid Blades

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In response to the poor financial results being reported in the US business, the company appointed an experienced senior level HR manager to develop a strategy to drive the change initiatives necessary to build an international team capable of delivering business success. The key accountability was to deliver the organisational design initiatives that would enable a global team to win high value global contracts and increase bottom line profitability.  A situational analysis revealed that the companies recent acquisition of a well branded high profile consulting business with a big US base, was not achieving the strategic intent of the deal. Early diagnosis of the situation revealed that the newly acquired business had not in any way been integrated into the parent companies culture or operational processes.  The two companies were functioning as separate entities with no economies of scale or scope, no shared vision or collaboration. The business picture was one of decreasing market share and increasing costs.

The solution was to bring the two companies together under a distinctive brand. It was obvious that stakeholders needed to believe in the new organisation and get excited about the services it could design and deliver to companies wanting effective global operations.  An organisational design plan was delivered to bring about the necessary changes. The plan was organised around 5 key themes of

·         Vision & Culture

·         Service Offer Development

·         Employee Engagement

·         Developing a Learning Culture

·         Collaborative Networks

A project based delivery mechanism was put in place and funding allocated to support the change programme. The change project established a global brand around the concept of building “adaptive organisations”.  International teams and service design projects were organised around the adaptiveness theme.  Its resilience within the company is still evident in that it continues to be sold as a concept for service solutions.  It also became the subject for much speculation by the analyst community.

Of the OD initiatives contributing to success the following were considered particularly critical:

·         Establishing the brand – this enabled the international cultural alignment of the two disparate organisations.

·         The stakeholder communications strategy to drive the global brand

·         The recruitment and development of the global talent base

·         The initiatives that created the learning culture, motivational to high performing teams.

·         Building systems and processes that underpinned the business units ability to establish effective international collaborative networks and virtual teams.

The business success was measured by the business results, such as achievement of the first years operating profits and the fact that this global business unit became one of the most profitable in the organisation.

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