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A question faced by many business leaders in today’s dynamic, uncertain, and changing business environment is: Is our organization “Fit for Growth?” In most cases, unfortunately, the answer to this question is “no.” Reasons include the manner in which costs are managed and resources deployed.
The fundamental question needed to be asked is: how to assess whether the organization is Fit for Growth? Such an assessment is effortlessly possible through answering the following 3 questions:
- Does the company have well-defined Strategic Priorities that concentrate on strategic growth and which direct its investments?
- Do the company costs align with the Strategic Priorities? i.e., efficient and effective employment of resources toward the Priorities.
- Does the Organizational Structure enable achievement of those Strategic Priorities?
Imagining the converse side of these queries makes the picture clearer. That is, what are the consequences of: Not having clear Priorities, Inappropriate deployment of Costs, Not having a well-designed organization.
Positioning the company to be Fit for Growth requires basing it on the following 3 pillars of Growth:
Setting the company on the 3 pillars enables it to direct investments towards the Capabilities that are most crucial and reduce—or eradicate—other costs.
Let us delve a little deeper into the details of these 3 pillars.
Strategic Priorities
Numerous warning indicators are apparent if the Strategic Growth Priorities of a company are not crystalized.
Warning signs such as being unable to keep track of the numerous initiatives that the company has going at the same time.
Senior executives of the company attending lots of unrelated meetings in a day. Executives being divergent on the most important capabilities of the company and how they relate to the strategic objectives.
Areas that can distinguish the company from its competitors not being properly invested in.
Research has established an important correlation between Capabilities and Strategy. Capabilities require lots of attention and investment because of their cross-functional effect and limited number.
It is therefore, needed to have clear Priority regarding which Capabilities to invest in.
Cost Structure
Inappropriate Costs Structure is also an indicator of incorrect priorities, particularly the amount spent on non-essentials.
Organizations aiming to be Fit for Growth make themselves lean and expend money purposefully. They can maintain their commanding position in such Cost Transformations by pursuing the 12 principles.
Costs are managed for efficiency as well as effectiveness using tools and practices that are usually grouped into 3 categories.
Growth
Organizations, over time, become slow in reacting to opportunities and do not move quickly enough, or are not in-line enough to work in unison. These are common manifestations, even in organizations that are run and managed well.
Interested in learning more about Fit for Growth? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Fit for Growth here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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“Strategy without Tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu
For effective Strategy Development and Strategic Planning, we must master both Strategy and Tactics. Our frameworks cover all phases of Strategy, from Strategy Design and Formulation to Strategy Deployment and Execution; as well as all levels of Strategy, from Corporate Strategy to Business Strategy to “Tactical” Strategy. Many of these methodologies are authored by global strategy consulting firms and have been successfully implemented at their Fortune 100 client organizations.
These frameworks include Porter’s Five Forces, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, Greiner’s Growth Model, Capabilities-driven Strategy (CDS), Business Model Innovation (BMI), Value Chain Analysis (VCA), Endgame Niche Strategies, Value Patterns, Integrated Strategy Model for Value Creation, Scenario Planning, to name a few.
Learn about our Strategy Development Best Practice Frameworks here.
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– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
Research by PwC indicates that leading companies are in a near perpetual state of Reorganization. This upsurge in Organizational Design initiatives is owing to the accelerating pace of strategic change caused by disruption of industries, changing competitor landscape, customer behaviors, and distribution channels.
Companies opt to commence efforts to restructure their organization in the hopes of enhancing efficiency, perpetuating growth, and surviving in future. Some shift their Business Models, few alter their focus from products to customer-centric; whereas others adopt new behaviors, systems, or IT architecture. However, merely a quarter of the Organizational Design initiatives succeed in achieving their anticipated objectives.
The reason for this high failure rate is simple. Reorganization is not about changing a company’s organogram. It’s a methodical processes that necessitates transforming / streamlining the decision-making process, mindsets, talent pipeline, reward structures, reporting lines, and the way responsibilities are assigned.
There is no cookie-cutter approach to Reorganization that can work across all organizations. However, research and management best practices reveal 10 principles that are critical for developing an effective Organizational Design, applicable to any enterprise:
- Don’t get caught in past Reorganization initiatives
- Consider Organizational Design elements
- Transform Organization Chart in the end
- Don’t overlook top talent
- Converge attention towards controllable factors
- Encourage responsibility
- Use best practices with care
- Harmonize organizational hierarchy with Strategic Objectives
- Give due emphasis to intangible elements of organization
- Make efficient use of company culture and practices
Let’s dive deeper into these guiding principles.
1. Don’t Get Caught in Past Reorganization Initiatives
Leaders at most organizations tend to keep discussing and focusing on the old reorganization initiatives. This takes away much of their time and energy which should rather be spent on making the current Organizational Design a success.
Organization Design should be created on the basis of an enterprise’s sense of purpose, strategy, core competencies, products, competitive advantage, and experience offered to customers and employees. Senior leaders need to be able to see the broader perspective, set clear organizational objectives, and steer the workforce to achieve their personal as well as organizational objectives.
2. Consider Organizational Design Elements
Reorganization is a complex undertaking, but a structured approach to Organizational Design assists in identifying and prioritizing key priorities. Organizational Design has 8 fundamental elements that are important for all organizations, Business Models, sectors, or regions. These elements can be categorized into 4 pairs. Each of these 4 pairs constitute a formal (tangible) and an informal (intangible) element:
- Decisions team up with Norms (the way people act).
- Motivators (the way people are influenced to work) pair with Commitments (what affects people’s thoughts about work).
- Information (the way data is processed) pairs with Mindsets (how people process knowledge and meaning).
- Structure (reporting lines) pairs off with Networks (how people collaborate).
Leaders should select fewer, prioritized Organizational Design elements to work on that have the most impact on their organizations.
3. Transform Organization Chart in the End
Most leaders consider Organization Structure to be the most critical element to Business Transformation. In reality, there are other key organizational elements that need to be tackled first to improve effectiveness. Revisiting the organogram does not have much effect on the way business is done—or to improve it. Structure depicts reporting lines and changing it can reduce costs temporary. Changing structure alone—without transforming other organizational elements—allows the redundant reporting lines to reappear and put the organization back to its earlier state of affairs. Instead of changing the organogram, core organizational issues should be prioritized and confronted first. Structure will adjust accordingly once the issues resolve.
4. Don’t Overlook Top Talent
Top talent often go unnoticed when it comes to Reorganization. The skills and traits of the senior leadership has a profound impact on Organizational Design. Mapping of technical capabilities and leadership abilities of top leadership is an important step to Reorganization.
Interested in learning more about the guiding principles critical for Organizational Design?” “You can download an editable PowerPoint on 10 Principles of Organizational Design here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
Business Transformations have become a necessity in the fast-changing technological and competitive business environment. Transformation is characterized by significant and risk-laden Restructuring of a company, with the objective of accomplishing Operational Excellence and changing its future course.
Business Transformation is a priority for many top executives but it is usually a reaction to challenging circumstances rather than being a preemptive measure.
Business Transformation is prompted by a combination of 2 situations:
- Need to address inherent problems causing organizational drag—these problems may be internal and/or external.
- Aspiration by the top management and other senior stakeholders to seize the occasion of addressing these problems, in ways that deeply alter the Business Model of the organization including Value Creation.
Business Transformation entails not just making incremental changes but fundamentally changing all or some of the following:
- Organizational Structure
- Core Product or Service Portfolio
- Systems
- Processes
- People—the way employees work
- Technology
Undertaking such arduous effort requires approaching the task in a structured way. Research shows that quite a few of such undertakings are based on anecdotal beliefs instead of being based on empirical data.
Countering this trend, the Boston Consulting Group conducted an empirical study of financial and non-financial data-set comprising 300 U.S. public companies. The data spanned a period of 12 years from 2004 to 2016. Selection was based on the following criteria:
- Companies that had a $10 billion or more market capitalization between 2004 and 2016.
- Of these, companies with an annualized deterioration in Total Share-holder Return (TSR) of 10% or more relative to their industry average (2 years running or more) were identified.
Based on extensive analysis—that included use of methodologies like trained proprietary algorithms, prediction models, and Multivariate Regression Analysis—a pattern pertaining to Business Transformation emerged. The pattern depicted the following themes:
- Frequency of Failure
- Impact of Digital Disruption
- Impact of Downturn
- Competitive Volatility
The study also suggested the following 5 evidence-based Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for achieving Transformation Success.
- Cost Management (drives short-term success)
- Revenue Growth (drives long-term success)
- Long-term Strategy and R&D Investment
- New, External Leadership
- Holistic Transformation Programs
Let us examine in a bit more detail some of the CSFs.
Cost Management
In order to launch the Transformation effort on the correct footing, Cost Management is key, in the short term especially. Predictably, empirical analysis suggests that the leading driver for organizations recovering from severe TSR deterioration is a determined Cost-cutting effort during the 1st year of Turnaround. By year 3, Cost Reduction is accountable for the major share of TSR growth as companies divert their portfolios and make available funding for growth investments.
Revenue Growth
Merely short-term operational improvements do not augur well for a sustainable Transformation. There has to be a long-term Growth Strategy put in place. For this to happen, leaders have to challenge the foundations of the company’s Business Model.
Research divulges that Revenue Growth progressively becomes the driver for TSR recovery after year 1 in all the successful Transformation efforts. Revenue Growth overshadows, by far, all the initial drivers for TSR recovery by year 5 of all successful Turnaround efforts.
Long-term Strategy and R&D Investment
Turbulent competitive environments, particularly, require long-term Strategic Planning and investment in Research and Development for fruitful Business Transformations. Empirical research and analysis demonstrates:
- A 4.8% difference between Transforming companies showing above-average long-term strategic direction compared to companies with a below-average orientation.
- More pronounced findings in transforming companies operating in turbulent competitive environments—long-term orientation linked with a TSR increase of 7%.
- Companies with above-average R&D investments had upwards of 5.1% TSR impact in contrast to those with below-average spending.
These CSFs strengthen the odds of success in Business Transformation individually. When used together, most of them produce an impact that is larger than the totality of their individual parts.
Interested in learning more about the 5 Critical Success Factors for Successful Business Transformation? You can download an editable PowerPoint on 5 Critical Success Factors for Successful Business Transformation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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“If you don’t transform your company, you’re stuck.” – Ursula Burns, Chairperson and CEO of VEON; former Chairperson and CEO of Xerox
Business Transformation is the process of fundamentally changing the systems, processes, people, and technology across an entire organization, business unit, or corporate function with the intention of achieving significant improvements in Revenue Growth, Cost Reduction, and/or Customer Satisfaction.
Transformation is pervasive across industries, particularly during times of disruption, as we are witnessing now as a result of COVID-19. However, despite how common these large scale efforts are, research shows that about 75% of these initiatives fail.
Leverage our frameworks to increase your chances of a successful Transformation by following best practices and avoiding failure-causing “Transformation Traps.”
Learn about our Business Transformation Best Practice Frameworks here.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
A job consists of various critical elements that are essential to achieve enterprise outcomes—i.e., talent and behavioral requirements, role, and responsibilities. Jobs that are configured inadequately bread disputes, negative perceptions, inequality, and frustration. On the other hand, structured jobs, appropriate distribution of work, justified authority levels, and correct estimation of value of individual jobs are the signs of effective Human Capital Management function.
The lack of a structured job design—or ill-defined jobs—renders the organizations ineffective and burdened with excessive staffing and payroll costs. This warrants from the leadership to plan and undertake a Job Leveling initiative. Job Leveling is a disciplined approach to gauge the value of work for individual positions across the organization. It entails ascertaining the nature of work done by each position, authority levels, and the effect of each job on business results. The initiative is critical in administering rewards structures.
However, Job Leveling is a concern at most organizations—not many people are satisfied with the value assigned to their roles. The absence of proper—or inadequate—job levels yields grave consequences for the entire organization. Jobs valued higher than their actual value lead to wastage of resources, whereas low valued jobs are perceived as offensive and inculcate demotivation.
Job Design and Job Leveling is essential when organizations consistently encounter these issues:
- Constant employees complaints and demands to reclassify jobs
- Excessive job titles
- Widespread dissatisfaction with remuneration
- Task / processes redundancy
- Financial outflow
- Staffing imbalances and top heavy structure
Workforce planners should use a Job Leveling Framework to methodically benchmark the value of jobs at their organizations. To accomplish this, they need to first analyze all the activities required under each position, the professional competences and demeanor essential to perform those activities, and gauging the effect each position has on business results.
Implementing a Job Leveling Framework simplifies the allocation of jobs in a harmonized job hierarchy, establishes consistency across the HR Initiatives, develops clear paths for growth, and improves decision making.
Human Resources practitioners need to follow these 5 key phases to implement a Job Leveling Framework and structure job levels at their organizations:
- Ensure Readiness of Pre-Implementation Groundwork
- Engage Business Leaders in Implementation
- Set up Clear Governance Structures
- Employ User-friendly Job Evaluation Management Tools
- Establish Clear Communication Mechanisms
Let’s dive deeper into the first 3 phases of the Job Leveling Framework Implementation, for now.
Ensure Readiness of Pre-Implementation Groundwork
Human Resource practitioners should first analyze their existing job architecture, job natures, roles and responsibilities, and Organizational Culture to initiate the Job Leveling process. Specifically, they have to answer these queries to identify the right Job Levelling method:
- What is the key objective to be achieved by implementing the Job Leveling initiative? Is it to improve compensation, shape career paths, or alleviate pay equity concerns?
- Who will be the users of the Job Leveling system? Will it be managed by Human Resources experts or business leaders?
- The Job Leveling exercise will impact which employees? How many roles, their nature of jobs, locations?
- Define the organizational culture and values. Is it hierarchical, centralized, or cost-focused?
Engage Business Leaders in Implementation
Effective Job Levelling Implementation necessitates involvement of business leaders from the onset of the exercise. Engaging business managers and employees can hold back the pace of implementation because of conflicting views and ideas, but this is essential for the success of Job Leveling. The right engagement involves:
- Getting agreement and support from senior business leaders.
- Including business leaders in calibration of key roles for support later during execution phase.
- Coaching key line managers and including them in job evaluation sessions to ensure adequate understanding of the roles and to develop program sponsors during implementation.
- Including key employees during the design phase of Job Leveling to remove any suspicion and win their agreement.
Set up Clear Governance Structures
Establishing effective control mechanisms is essential to avoid any glitches in implementing coherent job levels. Job Leveling initiatives in large multinational corporations fail because of dearth of appropriate governance mechanisms in place. A few organizations adopt centralized controls whereas others employ decentralized, locally-driven governance protocols. To execute clear yet robust governance mechanisms, organizations should follow these key tenets:
- Governance principles should correspond to the organizational culture.
- Stakeholders should be held accountable with clear roles.
- Authorities should be assigned to ensure proper control mechanisms.
- All concerned people should be engaged in the initiative.
- Decision making authorities should be clearly defined.
- Resources should be effectively deployed.
- Promote fairness by applying rules equally, or if not, rationale is clearly explained.
Interested in learning more about the other phases of Job Leveling Implementation and Job Leveling methods? You can download an editable PowerPoint on HR Strategy: Job Leveling Framework Implementation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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Inadequately structured jobs create disputes, negative perceptions, inequality, and frustration among employees. On the other hand, well-articulated jobs, appropriate distribution of work, justified authority levels, and correct estimation of value of individual jobs elevate employee engagement levels, productivity, and job satisfaction. Organized job levels are a sign of effective Human Resources Management function.
The lack of a structured job design—and ill-defined jobs—renders the organizations ineffective and burdened with excessive staffing and payroll costs. This warrants from the leadership to plan and undertake a Job Leveling initiative. Job Leveling is a disciplined approach to gauge the value of work for individual positions across the organization. It entails ascertaining the nature of work done by each position, authority levels, and the effect of each job on business results. The initiative is critical in administering rewards structures.
However, Job Leveling is a concern at most organizations—not many people are satisfied with the value assigned to their roles. The absence of proper—or inadequate—job levels yields grave consequences for the entire organization. Jobs valued higher than their actual value lead to wastage of resources, whereas low valued jobs are perceived as offensive and inculcate demotivation.
Job Design and Job Leveling is essential when organizations consistently encounter issues, such as:
- Constant employees complaints and demands to reclassify jobs
- Excessive job titles
- Widespread dissatisfaction with remuneration
- Task / processes redundancy
- Financial outflow
- Staffing imbalances and top heavy structure
Workforce planners should lay out a clearly-defined Job Leveling Framework to tackle these issues and methodically benchmark the value of jobs at their organizations. To accomplish this, they need to first analyze all the activities required under each position, the professional competences and demeanor essential to perform those activities, and gauging the effect each position has on business results.
The 4 core benefits to developing and executing an efficient Job Leveling Framework include:
- Establish Consistency across the Human Resource Initiatives
- Develop Clear Paths for Career Growth
- Improve Ease of Administration
- Increase Flexibility for M&A
Let’s delve deeper into 3 of these benefits, for now.
Establish Consistency Across the HR Initiatives
A standardized job evaluation approach enables a consistent job structure terminology. It makes communication and Job Leveling related decisions easier. A Job Leveling Framework aids in defining relative placement of various jobs, using elements, such as, knowledge, problem solving, interaction, impact, and accountabilities. Alignment of jobs through a Job Leveling Framework helps in developing consistency across other HR initiatives and make better talent related decisions.
Develop Clear Paths for Career Growth
Organizations use clear career pathways to enhance employee engagement, meet employee expectations, and provide opportunities for their development. A Job Leveling Framework provide clear-cut job structure to inspire the employees. Career pathways developed through Job Leveling Framework helps the leaders as they strive to improve the amount of mobility across teams, units, and divisions.
Improve Ease of Administration
A Job Leveling Framework assists in developing efficient methods to administer HR initiatives. A Job Leveling Framework enables improved efficiencies and decisions related to key talent and their work. For instance, it streamlines pay grades and salary structures; standardizes job titles; simplifies short-term incentive criteria and objectives definition; and structures long-term reward eligibility criteria and nominations.
Interested in learning more about the Job Leveling Framework and benefits associated with its implementation? You can download an editable PowerPoint on HR Strategy: Job Leveling Framework here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Are you a Management Consultant?
You can download this and hundreds of other consulting frameworks and consulting training guides from the FlevyPro library.
