Business Services

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Our Business Diagnostic is a short five day rapid assessment of the business operational capability to identify if further -in-depth activities are required to enable productivity and profitability improvement.

 The Quick Diagnostic Service summarises the results of a high-level assessment of the organisation, including:

• Alignment between organisational structure and the requirement of business operations to meet  strategic objectives
• Capability of the leadership team (executive and other key managerial staff)
• Availability and use of information informing business decisions at all levels - executive through  to operational
• Market positioning
• Optimal use of cash-flow
• Efficiency and effectiveness improvement opportunities of business processes - strategic through to operational
• Benchmarking performance - overheads, direct labour and material costs 

Quick win opportunities will be identified that will allow optimum benefit to be realised with minimum investment of resources.
A Quick Diagnostic may be suitable for:

• Identifying areas for detailed review where performance is below expectation and the cause identified
• Financing decisions
• Assessing the effective of realising business strategies
• Prior to after merger/Acquisition activities

 Our method for Co-Designing business strategy involves three stages: (1) Assess Current Strategy, (2) Choosing Strategy Options, and (3) Acting to transform.
Stage 1: Assess Current Strategy - involves exploring the following questions:

• what is the current strategy and how well is it followed?
• how do we better communication the current strategy to stakeholders?
• what strategic tensions are apparent and what does that mean?
• how well does our strategy perform compared to expectations/objectives?
• how well does our strategy position future-proof the business?
• what are the opportunities and threats to the current strategy?

Stage 2: Choosing Strategy Options - involves exploring the following questions:

• how do we expand the set of strategy alternatives?
• how de we consider different business  models?
• how do we build resilience into our business strategy?
• how de we frame choices that prevents indecisions (paralysis analysis)?
• what are feasible, acceptable, distinguishable and sustainable (FASD) final strategy choices?
• what assumptions unpin these choices (Limitations and Constraints)?

Stage 3: Acting to Transform - involves exploring the following questions:

• how to translate our new strategy into a set of actionable initiatives?
• what are the specific areas of transformation implied in the new strategy?
• how prepared is the organisation to transform?
• how do we motivate the organisation to transform?
• what is the most realistic transformation time-frames
• how do we measure if the transformation to a new strategy is realising it expected benefits, objective, and outcomes? 

 Clarifying the Needs and Requirements of the Transformation. This sets out the high level statement of bounded need-for-change and articulates the vision and outcomes of the change. These become critical inputs to the business case. Our Business Case encapsulates the (1) strategic case, the (2) economic case, and (3) the financial, commercial and management cases.(1) Strategic Case sets out:

• the decisions sought
• the business environment context
• justification for the need and investment within the business environment
• the scope to be agreed, in terms of objectives, outcomes, and requirements
• the 'fit' of the proposal within the context of the business strategic intentions
• value proposition, as known at the time, relative to other potential investments
• the expected financial allocation 
• the program/project strategy
• risk , issues and opportunities
• constraints that impact the selection of business case options
• dependencies and potential impacts on other part of business operations

(2) Economic Case sets out:

• critical success factors used to evaluate the business case options
• value proposition of each option
• supplier capacity and capability (market analysis)
• potential affordability and achievability
• if options might require further development

(3) Financial, Commercial, and Management Cases set out:

• project/program execution strategies
• tailored approval pathways
• tailored acquisition and sustainment strategies including industry engagement and market solicitation methods
• risk reduction activities addressing project/program risks
• cost and schedule estimations
• project execution/implementation workforce estimates
• management and project/program dependencies
• governance and assurance approach
• resource estimates required to reach business case consideration
• cost estimates for risk reduction activities
• draft guidance on project/program escalation criteria and thresholds for return to business executives decisions making

  Our business transformation services seek is based on a pragmatic and practical approach to three fundamental questions:

• What are we trying to accomplish?
• How will we know that a change is an improvement?
• What changes can we make that will result in improvement/transformation?

Fundamental to the success of any improvement effort in understanding that improvement require that change occur - unfortunately not all changes result in improvement. Acquiring knowledge is essential for successful improvement/transformation in an business and requires:

• Appreciation of a business as a System
• Understanding variation in business operations
• Building knowledge on how changes will positively and negatively impact business operations
• Understanding how the human side of change impact 'up-take- and sustainment of solutions

We design to deliver tailored discrete analysis tasks across the DMAIC framework, key examples of which are: 

• CART Analysis (incl Machine Learning)
• Process & Value Stream Mapping
• Cause & Effect and Root Cause analysis
• Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA)
• Process Capability analysis
• Cost of Poor Quality & Waste analysis
• Testing methods and/or instruments providing comparable measurements
• Testing the stability of a product over time and to determine a product's shelf life
• Process Control Management
• Acceptance/Rejection Quality Sampling techniques
• Process Capability Assessment and Tolerance levels
• Measurement System Analysis - (1) Type 1 Gage study, (2) Gage R&R study, Gage Linearity & Bias study
• Repairable Systems Analysis - where parts are repaired instead of being replaced on failure
• Accelerated Life Testing - investigating the relationship between failure time and one of more predictors of failure to predict failure times
• Warranty Analysis - for setting priorities and resources for corrective measures and estimating warranty costs

Our Business Operations Health Checks are a comprehensive review of business operations, conducted over an agreed number of weeks.

The activities underpinning this comprehensive review include:

• review of alignment of business operations the the business strategic objectives and plans
• 'voice of' interviews with agree customers, stakeholders, employees and management
• selection of key business metrics and measures for deep-dive analysis
• business operations and process data collection and analysis
• KAIZEN workshops with agreed stakeholders
• identification of quick wins and just-do-it improvement opportunities
• current state value stream mapping and analysis
• identification of focus areas with business operations of waste, bottle-necks and constraints to productivity, efficiency and profitability
• identification of drivers and levers for shareholder value across areas: (1) revenue growth, (2) operating margin, (3) asset efficiency, ad (4) expectations
• maturity model assessment of current state technology, organisational structures, capabilities and training 

Our project/program health check reassess the current state capability to evaluate the benefits realised and provide to assist evolution of current projects/programs.

The reassessment reviews the following elements:

• Mission - understanding the key objective
• Insights - review of the analytics and data that is being used to make project/program management decisions
• Process - review of high level project and program management/delivery processes
• Technology - review of applications used to support decision making
• Talent - determine if there are capability gaps across the project or program teams. This is not a personnel assessment, but a capability gap assessment of team capability
• Integration - review of governance and accountability arrangements across the project/program delivery teams

The benefits of our project/program management services are

The core Project/Program services include the following functions:

• Strategic Direction management
• Governance
• Initiative Pipeline management
• Delivery Support
• Reporting
• Change and Communications
• Government policy support (optional)
• Implementation support (optional)

To support delivery, we also include development of agreed tools and templates, such as:

• Project/Program Charters and Direction documentation
• Governance charters
• Governance approach documentation
• Pipeline evaluation processes
• Risk Management frameworks
• Progress and Performance tracking
• Change Management pland and tracking

Our Project and program management services are aligned to the PRINCE2 and Managing Successful Programs (MSP) frameworks.

The delivery of our services are are not 'one-size-fits-all' and we tailor both Waterfall and Hybrid Agile project approaches to the characteristics of the project and the needs of the business.