Developing a target operating model for a digital services consultancy

Situation

Our client, a leading transformation and digital services consultancy, has a division that provides business process and IT services to private sector clients. As part of a groupwide business strategy, a number of improvements were being applied to the division with the aim of boosting revenue, decreasing the high cost base and improving service quality. Certain business challenges also needed to be addressed, such as the high attrition rate of staff.

An important part of the solution was to migrate the business to an industry aligned target operating model (TOM) to remove client specific operating silos, implement global working methods and introduce a matrix of reporting structures, all geared towards improving efficiency and driving down costs.

Approach

Valcon, with its deep experience in digital and business transformation, has a team specialising in TOM design and implementation. The team mobilised quickly to develop an end-to-end plan for the organisation design process. Valcon provided the leadership of the organisation design workstream for the client, managing the transition to the new TOM by taking the design and cascading it down through a series of new operating units. The TOM was designed to improve functional areas, such as market verticals, consult and transform, and technology and products.

Valcon facilitated the design workshops with each operating unit (OU) leadership team and created the design structures and supporting data analysis. Valcon also hosted weekly design sessions with each OU leadership team and created a design authority desk for each OU. Valcon also supported the handover of design materials to the leadership of the OU and HR business partners. Key artefacts the Valcon team developed included value propositions, design principles, capability models and detailed organisational structures.

Results

Cost reduction: Valcon quickly facilitated a £10m reduction in annualised operating expenditure, together with an approach and plan to realise these savings.

Growth facilitation: the consolidation of divisional business activities into a clear set of ‘standard’ operating units to facilitate growth and improve cross-functional cooperation. Standardisation enables collaboration across operating geographies and offers transparency to key external stakeholders such as clients, regulators and suppliers.

Improving efficiency: the removal of legacy operating silos enables the division to reduce a high operating cost base and apply resources (e.g. investment, people, management focus) to areas of the business with the greatest growth potential.

Case Studies