How many of these statements are true for your organisation …?
- You have important business issues that need to be tackled, and faster than you're likely to do so.
- The organisation is facing a crisis, but few people seem to realise it.
- Employees don't seem to understand the link between what they do and the strategic priorities of the business.
- Customers are complaining or leaving, but you don't clearly understand why.
- Decision making is out of balance, either so concentrated that people run into delays and bottlenecks, or so dispersed that accountability or power to make a decision is unclear.
- There is a lot of red tape, with multiple sign-offs required for most non-routine matters, with people afraid to make decisions on their own, so they always pass the buck on to someone else.
- The organisation has lots of layers, and lots of rules, many of them contradictory or confusing.
- The structure's too rigid and hasn't really changed in years, despite many attempts at “paper reorganisation”.
- There's avoidance of disagreement and debate, especially between levels, and the suspicion that key employees think senior managers are out of touch.
- Managers tend to protect their own ‘turf’, and people tend to avoid accountability for their own results.
- Suggestions are usually greeted with “we've tried that before and it didn't work”, with innovation and change mandated by senior managers rather than coming from the ‘front line’.
- Risk-taking goes unrewarded, and there's no culture of learning and sharing with each other.
Take more time to consider these questions, download them in Survey format
We work in a range of sectors, where many…
… of the above scenarios are all too current, and where some form of Organisational Change or Business Process Improvement (BPI) programme is already planned or under way.
The drivers vary: increased efficiency; cost reduction; corporate restructure; increased competition; Quality improvement; emergence of new technology; falling sales; the need to make the business more innovative; business relocation; expansion into new markets; Globalisation… change programmes inspired either by ambition, fear, or a bit of both.
The majority of the businesses we work with handle their change programmes internally, because the leaders of these organisations feel, rightly in our view, that ‘in-house’ teams better understand the culture of their business.
However, internal change and BPI programmes will often stall. Then restart. Only to stall again.
So, to ensure similar initiatives can deliver real benefits, organisations engage eWork-Out to fill the knowlegde gaps and manage the change process, on their behalf, particularly if they don't have the resources to hire a major, blue-chip management consultancy brand.
It's still true that “nobody ever got fired for using a top change consultancy” to run a Change or Business Process Improvement programme but, in our experience, and that of many of our clients, BPI programmes which don't involve the organisation as a whole, tend not to deliver hoped for results.
The markets we've served …
… include Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and Private Equity houses, where there's been a need for organisational due diligence support, prior to merger or acquisition; as well as licensed Insolvency Practictioners and ‘Turnaround’ Consultants, for example supervising CVAs. eWork-Out's services help improve an organisation's financial effectiveness: standardising and simplifying their finance processes; strengthening their performance management, budgeting and forecasting capabilities; improving internal and external reporting; optimising cash flow and the use of capital; and building and maintaining cost-effective controls.
And where we've worked with corporate and larger-scale organisations, it has been to help them to implement corporate governance and compliance measures, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Combined Code and Basel II: where we assist them to improve decision-making by factoring risk information into strategic planning; reducing cost and increasing the effectiveness of compliance activities; helping to protect reputation and brand by avoiding or recovering quickly from a compliance failure; and gaining confidence in risk and compliance oversight.
We also recommend our services to organisations preparing for and planning ISO certification or other quality programmes.
Clearly, every organisation is unique…
…each with its own business challenges, management processes and human culture. Typically though, our client base will be experiencing some fairly standard and, to us, familiar problems, issues and concerns, leading to company-wide frustrations, such as disorganisation, constant fire fighting, worries about sales, lack of teamwork, motivational/morale problems, employee stress and burnout, churn and high turnover, slow quote turnaround… requiring thoroughgoing and root cause problem identification, definition and analysis, and generating solid solutions and effective action plans.
But our starting point is that every company and organisation has a business need for eWork-Out's Change Management and Business Process Improvement programmes, whether the pressure for improvement is internal or external.
However, we actively seek to attract clients who pride themselves on delivering high standards as well as high profit levels, who want to make a difference and contribution and are as passionate about their field as we are about ours.
Billing Analyst
“I have obtained a wealth of knowledge in understanding the business and the business needs. eWork-Out has brought to my attention our ability to correct problems with a thought-out solution from the different groups who touch the problem. If I have a problem in my existing role, I think of who is involved and how they can help.”
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