Client
Leading Management Consulting Firm
Objective
Benchmark & Improve Support Functions’ Performance
Situation
Our client experienced an increasing variety of issues and challenges with its internal support functions during a three year period of rapid consulting growth; the severity of the problems directly impacted business and threatened its continued growth. Voluntary turnover was symptomatic of an increasing workload and strain on operations staff; internal employee surveying pointed to declining morale and job satisfaction in support functions, while management and consultants showed an equivalent level of declining satisfaction with the practice’s operational support. Despite increased annual budget allocations for operations, shadow spending in parts of the business was uncovered, apparently to execute the workload that central operations functions were unable to accommodate. A top to bottom operations review and plan was needed to right-size individual functions, improve their respective performance, and ensure both best-in-class services as well as cost effectiveness to sustain growth and profitability.
Engagement
The company turned to Pilgrim to analyze and improve its support operations; to assess, benchmark and compare the performance, spending and staffing of key functions; and to recommend priority actions and advise on their implementation. We helped company leadership realize that client needs, expectations and satisfaction were tied to and required strong support functions. Pilgrim identified key expectations that the company’s consulting clients’ hold and which are directly and indirectly impacted by the quality and proficiency of support functions. We set out a target operating model that included several categories of functional support and benchmarked our client’s spending in each area against high-performing and peer firms. For example, the project outcomes illustrated how other consulting firms proactively plan and manage in order to improve over a dozen critical marketing capabilities. We benchmarked the current and required maturity level for each of the client’s other support functions, compared these to peers and high-performing firms in their segment, and identified gaps. In addition to marketing, this approach was applied to the client’s professional/leadership development, knowledge management & intellectual property, learning & development, finance, legal, sales/client development, IT, and other operations. \Assessments included delivery quality, culture, institutional strength, trust, expertise, process proficiency, and other attributes. Pilgrim identified priority areas for improvement and advised on urgently needed investments, new staffing/positions, and what impact the implementation of our plan would have on the organizational structure.
Results
Upon implementing Pilgrim’s recommendations, our client witnessed increased satisfaction by both its internal operations staff and clientele. Performance improved, and the firm began to grow again: Management saw an increase in the frequency of achievement in its operational key performance indicators in each of the functional areas where Pilgrim’s advice had been applied. Capacity in each function increased in line with a decrease in shadow spending, and turnover dropped. The client planned ongoing reviews to ensure that spending, staffing, and performance remain in line with peers and industry standards.
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Based in Wellesley, MA, Pilgrim Partners, LLC delivers world-class advisement to executive teams across most areas of professional and technology services. Since 2004 we have helped organizations to build and grow their organizations using our data-driven, market-based strategic approach.
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