validus management consultancy UK

Utilities Case Study

Connections business within major supplier (1)


Poor overall business performance and lack of strategic focus
Overall strategy and direction re-established and strengthened new operating model developed

THE ORGANISATION

The Connections business within a major multi-utility service provider

THE ISSUES / PROBLEMS

  • Poor overall business performance
  • Lack of strategic focus
  • Business needed to develop a new, improved operating model

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

  • Held senior management strategy development workshops
  • Critically examined the strategic thinking to date and rationale behind the proposed operating model
  • Tested thinking for: (a) completeness to ensure all strategic imperatives were covered and (b) robustness, examining data sources and reliability. Areas covered included:
    • External Imperatives:
      Economic developments / Industry developments / Socio-political trends / Competitive trends and strategies / Customer trends and strategies / Regulatory concerns
    • Market Sector Analysis
      Sector focus / Customer base / Current share of business / Who should be targeted and why? / Current and future margins / How to 'bridge the margin gap'
    • Internal Analysis
      Fit with wider company strategy / Business processes / Capacity, resources and workload evaluation / Current operating performance / Operating costs / Stakeholder relationships / IT developments / Organisational structure / People and skills base
    • High level assessment
      Development of alternative business scenarios
      Identification of key strategic and operational risks associated with each scenario
      Financial assessment – alternative scenarios
      Implementation planning – 'do-ability' of preferred strategic and operating model alternatives
  • Identified substantive additional issues not currently factored in to business strategy and new operating model development
  • Identified major information gaps, data gathering processes and frameworks for evaluation to support strategy development
  • Comprehensive re-assessment using data to examining: customers, sector focus, pricing, operating performance and financial impacts

PROJECT RESULTS

  • Greater clarity within senior management team – overall strategy and direction
  • Strengthened new operating model developed – robust underlying rational
  • Key risk areas identified with mitigating actions built into overall implementation plan
  • Improved clarity of implementation plan – levels of detail added
  • Robust platform for strategy communication – improved confidence within the business
  • Improved strategic thinking amongst senior management team
  • Strategy and new operating model now being implemented

 
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