Operations Consulting
Fine tuning Operations in the disruptive world
Setting Businesses Up for Success
Operations consulting is not limited to Operations, it covers optimisation of other functions too. With Global pressure on Profit margins, firms constantly have to adapt their organisation in order to remain competitive. Increasingly organisations deploy technology to automate manual processes, however, it is important to look at the operations from a 10,000 feet wide angle before intervening and swapping out the existing processes and systems.
Operating Model Design
​
The Operating Model is how an Organisation delivers value to its customers. It is a sequence of steps that describe the main work of the organisation. A Target Operating Model (TOM) is the desired state, where the firm wants to be in the future.
Design of a Target Operating Model includes the following primary elements:​
People - In-house skills assessment, recruitment and training, utilisation, new ways of working and flexible workforce.
Process - process standardisation, integration, operational procedures, roles & responsibilities.​
Technology - legacy applications, cloud capability, supplier risk management and upscale capability.
Customer - customer experience, pricing strategy, product offering, lifetime value and brand loyalty.
Besides the primary elements, also suppliers and locations are also taken into consideration.
Synergy Distruption
Problem
Building a Strategically aligned Operating model continues to be an elusive objective for many organisations. Over time, every department makes changes to suit their needs and each manager brings their own flavour in an effort to improve the productivity of their teams. Consequently, this breaks down the established processes, protecting their own domain's priorities to the detriment of the overall business. People lose sight of the Organisation's goals, the effort is wasted, morale drops as teams work in silos and a complacent culture takes over where Accountability is shunned.
​
​
Solution
​​
At this point, the most effective solution is to align the Strategy with the Operating Model. To do so, it is essential to:
Improve Operational Performance and Reduce Costs
Every organisation faces challenges as it grows, new processes are quickly bolted on top of existing processes in order to meet demand and workers rely on personal relationships and benefit from close proximity amongst their teams since the business is still small, to get the work done. However, as an organisation grows, teams expand and workload increases, it becomes difficult to function since the underlying processes are insufficient for its scale and everyone has come up with their own way of getting things done. This takes a toll on the bottom line and whilst it is not evident in the growth phase since the organisation is expanding, it certainly becomes a pain as the firm reaches maturity or the economy takes a toll. The risk of operating on low-profit margins is that very soon your competitors will undercut you, even if it is for a short period of time and put you on the edge. ​This is why it is vital that an Organisation continuously reviews its process and eliminates waste, also known as Continuous improvement.