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How Dr Robert Davies can help you

I have helped managers in many organisations tackle the challenges of tomorrow.  My style is to work as a temporary member of your team to help develop and, more importantly, implement solutions.  Unlike some consultants, I don't have a range of pre-designed products.  Rather, my style is to listen to your issues and then design, with your team, helpful initiatives and solutions.  

The services that I can provide is divided into two broad categories.  The first is consultancy and advisory support, the second learning, training and development. On this page I will provide examples of the consultancy support that I have provided.  You can find out more about the learning and development support that I provide here.

 

Consultancy and Advisory Services

My work in the past has covered the following areas:

Vignettes of some of my assignments and services are shown below

  • Strategy development:  The client wanted a radically new strategy to face a changing environment.  Above all, the new strategy was to be owned at all levels in the organisation, but previous attempts to develop a new, shared direction had failed.  I formed a series of "slice groups" - representing all levels in the organisation - trained them in the latest strategic techniques and guided them through the process of building the new strategy.  The strategy was successfully presented at main board level and was communicated laterally outwards through the organisation by members of the "slice groups".  Using "slice groups" meant that each part of the organisation had an owner and sponsor for the new direction.  This also provided a clear platform for implementation.  I helped to guide the client organisation through the process of implementation working on a one to one basis with their business teams.

  • Scenario planning:  Helping clients to develop forward looking views of the future to explore critical uncertainties is a particular specialism.  Scenario planning is one of the most important tools that we have to help organisations make sense of uncertainty.  It is therefore particularly relevant at the moment.  Developing scenarios can be time consuming and complex, but I invest a considerable amount of time in tracking developments in the global marketplace and developing alternative scenarios.  These scenarios can be used by client organisations to help them to rapidly develop their own business specific scenarios and response strategies.  I can also help organisations to identify the right "shaping events" - these are the key events that will determine what our future business marketplace will look like.

  • Managing uncertainty:  The current economic crisis places real and unique proessures on business leaders at all levels.  Working with you using selected colleagues I can help to provide one to one coaching and mentoring support to help you tackle the challenges of this unusual period.

  • Competitor analysis:  Understanding the "DNA" of your competitors is an essential element of any winning strategy.  Using structured approaches that can be directly transferred into your organisation I can help you to "get inside the heads" of your competitors and identify where the threats and opportunities really are.

  • B2B Market Research:  Identification of the needs and preferences of your clients and distributors.  Typically, the outcome of this work is used for both product development and relationship strategy purposes.  Usually, I conduct interviews on a one to one basis, but I have also trained saleforces to use structured interview techniques to help organisations get a clearer view of changing needs.

  • Change Management:  This large, long-established financial services company realised that a radical shift in culture and competencies was required for the next decade.  It was the first time that a major organisation-wide change project had been considered.  I was able to help management diagnose the barriers to change in the organisation through the use of diagnostic questionnaires and interviews.  Then, by using real case studies, I helped management to both map the change process and to proactively tackle challenges as the change process unfolded.

  • Management assessment centres:  A highly skilled top-level manager was the driving force behind this client's unrivalled track record of profitability.  The problem was that this exceptional manager was due to retire.  The task was to capture his competency set and use this as a basis for both selecting a successor and building a framework for personal development in the organisation.  Through interviews and observation I was able to build a definition of this manager's unique competency set and to further develop it to meet the demands of a future competitive environment.  This was used as a basis for an assessment centre to identify the successor and to define the development needs of other aspiring managers in the organisation.

  • Competency definition and assessment:  This organisation realised that success would only come through a distinctly different competency set.  Workshops were facilitated to help position core competencies against those of key competitors.  The output was used as a foundation to build a series of inter-locking competency families to cover all roles in the organisation - from receptionist to members of the top executive team.

  • M & A planning:  To gain the maximum benefits from the acquisition, I helped this client prepare an integration plan that covered all organisational dimensions, from maximisation of the product portfolio to the diagnosis and integration of the two organisations' cultures.

  • Balanced scorecard design and implementation:  This client had some experience of using the balanced scorecard but wanted to take it ahead of scorecards being used by the competition.  I used four approaches.  Firstly I used project teams based around the "slice group" principle - this helped ensure organisation-wide ownership of the end result.  Secondly, I encouraged team members to understand the needs of all interested stakeholders - inside and outside the organisation.  Thirdly, I ensured that the group's focus was on the development of performance driving measures - leading indicators of future success or failure.  Finally, the issue was embedding the balanced scorecard as the central element in a new management behavioural style.  To do this, I redesigned management information reports and decision systems around the four dimensions of the balanced scorecard to embed the scorecard into management and team behaviour.

  • Innovation effectiveness profiling:  Management was worried about the failure of recent new product initiatives.  Using a mix of small sample organisational surveys and interviews, I was able to help managers identify the true blockages in the innovation process.  The result was that innovation and new product development became an organisation-wide responsibility - not just the concern of an individual department.

  • Portfolio management - building the optimal product portfolio:  Assembling an optimal product portfolio is at the heart of the strategy process.  I have helped managers to assemble a  graphically based model that assessed the future competitive environment, the organisation's capability to compete, planned financial results and, importantly, the probability that future financial objectives would be achieved. The model captured all elements of the planning process and presented the output as an easily understood graphical decision matrix.

To find out more about how I can help you, please spend a few minutes exploring this site and don’t forget to look at the Executive Briefings and Blog pages. These pages help to keep managers up to date on selected key issues in the management agenda. The Executive Briefing and Blog pages are regularly updated to keep you informed of the key issues in the strategy, innovation and strategic change fields, so why not register now to receive the next Briefing by e-mail? Alternatively, click the RSS feed icon RSS Feed to receive notification of updates direct to your news feed reader.