How to improve the design
and execution of strategy
Cross organisational coordination
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diseases
Likely symptoms of problems
From a customer’s perspective, the various parts of the
organisation operate in quite different ways. In the end they
walk away, if they can. Internally you might hear, "We do
our bit - its that other lot...".
Preliminary diagnosis
The organisation is operating, at best in silo functions, and
at worst as fiefdoms. Between them there is a lack of consideration
of the experience and needs of the customer. Moreover there is
little that makes sure there is a common sense of responsibility
and objectives between the parts of the organisation.
Re-engineering gurus would re-engineer around processes. Whilst
this may be an answer, longer term, creating a sense of share
objectives from the customer's perspectives is the place to start.
Case study
Synergy delivering to the same client
This utility wanted to move up its performance rankings and delivery
a far better service to its customers. Having many disparate
departments and functions, they rarely focused on the client as
a whole. So at the corporate level we made sure we were
clear about what the customer wanted. From this was developed
joint internal objectives that cut across departments.
As we worked through the organisation it became clear that these
carefully chosen joint objectives shook up the way people thought
about the delivery. It became clear where one part of the
organisation contributed to another part's delivery to the client.
In several cases the hand-off between departments was identified
as a problem area.
By systematically mapping the contribution it was possible to
go a step further that merely joint objectives. To propose
a design for a more efficient organisation that minimised hand-offs
and grouped teams together around delivery to the client.
in fact this design was implemented with substantial operational
cost savings for the company as well as an improvement to the
service. Three years later the company had moved up its
performance rankings as it initially set out to do.
Synergy between different companies
Separately, we were able to unlock the synergy within five different
companies across an engineering group in Europe. Working with
each company we developed and mapped their individual strategies.
This included how they could contribute to the other company's,
and the groups, objectives. We then pulled together an overall
picture of how each company contributed towards a single strategy
for the whole group.
This created an illuminating picture of how each company saw
itself, how they saw their contribution and the help they would
like from others. In particular it highlighted how respective
personalities affected the mix.
Particular Directors from each of the companies were then made
responsible for delivering an aspect of the synergy. In
each case they had to work with the other Directors to ensure,
jointly, that it happened.
This gave a disparate group, that covered quite different clients,
the basis for delivering a better range of services to their own
clients and improving the service delivered across the group as
a whole.
Underlying solutions
The questions we ask and the way we ask them, pulls out the underlying
objectives. By focusing on the customer's perspective in the way
we do, we are able to create a joint ownership of delivery for
the customer.
You may decide to reorganise departments, re-engineer processes,
or re-allocate responsibilities. However, the mere act of having
the right, powerful, objectives has the effect of changing the
way people think, the organisation delivers and the customers
perceive the organisation. After all, this is what we are trying
to achieve.
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