Services for Businesses

Focusing on reconnecting with clients

Two established businesses, one would be categorised as a small enterprise and one would be categorized as a medium enterprise.

The organisation operates in numerous niche areas of the market place especially providing high-end architectural furniture and related interior objects and in this area is a business to business proposition.

Nature of work undertaken by BOFI (Joanne undertook this work as a project):

Essentially the revision of the strategic plan, combined with relationships management, market research and the development of a number of key actions that if implemented, would re-connect the business with its core clientele and also enable it to regain its position in the marketplace as the preferred provider of its architectural products and associated advisory services.

Objective: Understand the current and desired strategic direction and plans for the business; meet key current and former clients of the business in order to gain a good level of understanding about what they need, want and expect from the business.  Hold meetings with the owner-manager; meet staff.  Read internal literature. Get to know the major client list and their businesses. Find out how they wish to do business with my client, including preferred communication channels. Undertake relevant market research.

Key success factors:

Being a new and fresh set of eyes and able to listen, and to draw upon knowledge and skills across numerous disciplines but to actually apply it and transfer it into the business through its staff and some new relationships management strategies.

Able to hold frank and constructive conversations with a number of previously good clients. It would have been harder for the client contact to be as open to someone inside the business but as a consultant working to improve relationships Joanne was able to receive very honest feedback about the how the business was perceived as well as what would be needed in order for the client to resume good relationships with my client.

Organisation 2: an established, family owned and run furniture manufacturing business.

The objective: competitor analysis: undertake market research to investigate and analyse the major competitors in the SA marketplace.

The outcome achieved: the business managers gained a very valuable understanding about the increasingly competitive landscape and this combined with the consultant’s analysis of the business reinforced its self-understanding as to its main points of differentiation. This information and insights gained fed into its refreshed advertising and marketing activities.

Focusing on addressing resistance in the marketplace

The objective: open up a niche area of the building and construction industry to a new, small business owned and managed by a highly experienced construction manager seeking to set up a small, innovative enterprise operating in a specific area of this industry in SA.

Main work undertaken by Joanne of BOFI: this role could be best described as a business development management role for the business, and the work was of a predominantly full time nature throughout 2010, tapering off in later years as the business became established and had effective relationships with key civil and construction engineers, certifiers, builders and government agencies needing its services. In the business development role, considerable effort was taken at the start to (a) become familiar with screw pile technology and the building and construction industry, i.e. domestic and light commercial, areas that were until that time unfamiliar to me; (b) become familiar with the owner manager’s previous, current and desired future business objectives. This was a business where the creation and maintenance of good relationships with a number of key professionals in the industry would be critical to the success of the business. 

Once (a) and (b) had been achieved, Joanne set out to prepare a concise business plan for the business in collaboration with the owner manager; here the very important tasks of setting out short-term, medium term and longer term strategies and goals were key to then getting out and meeting a large number of people and organisations once a substantial data base of current and prospective clients and stakeholders had been developed by Joanne. A considerable effort then went into meeting with these parties, namely: civil engineering firms; architects and building designers; builders, large and small, domestic and light commercial; building planners; certifiers; government agencies and professional associations such as the Footings group in the SA Institute of Engineers, to name the main ones. Evening information sessions were also held in order to ensure that important stakeholders such as civil engineers and building certifiers had opportunities to hear from technical experts in the nature and correct applications and use of screw pile technology. This was done in order to rectify misinformation that had infected the market some years prior to the business being set up, caused by parties elsewhere misusing the technology that had also been superseded by improved design specifications about which the marketplace was not familiar.

Outcome: over time the business gained a reputation for quality work in footings, foundations and underpinning work using screw pile technology; it currently receives repeat business and has established excellent working relationships with civil engineers who design and construct projects where the use of screw piles is appropriate to the soil and site conditions. Its main projects are now in the light commercial area. 

Focusing on Executive Leadership Development for a national organisation.

In 2010 Joanne was contracted through BOFI to develop and conduct a two-day workshop, held off site at the employer’s location of choice. Notably the enlightened senior leadership expressed a desire to have a better understanding about how they were doing, in the context of intelligence I could provide them with from my research into key factors that the most progressive and forward looking organisations tend to do well. The organisation takes investment in its people through a diverse offering of learning and development options seriously.

The key objectives of the two-day workshop were as follows:

To provide the Executive Leadership group with:

• A clear understanding of the knowledge and skills that employees had and were acquiring and developing through the learning and development programs being implemented at the time;
• An opportunity to discuss and arrive at an understanding of the likely impact of such knowledge and skills development, on the way employees approached their various roles and responsibilities;
• An opportunity to discuss and consider the longer term/sustained impact of this learning – i.e. changes in employees’ expectations –e.g. relating it to how they were being led and also to their career aspirations;
• An opportunity to discuss the various ways in which people prefer to learn and develop i.e. that some will prefer a ‘hands on’ approach, some people learn in a concrete, step by step approach, others will want to have time to study a topic in greater depth and possibly greater complexity, and some will want to see a clear and direct relationship between learning and career development. (These were just some examples given at the time);
• An opportunity to undertake the MBTI as many employees were also undertaking this assessment, and it was seen as desirable that senior leaders had a real and practical understanding of it and its uses, value and limitations);
• An opportunity to focus on a number of issues facing leaders and their organisations with specific links to the learning and development implications for the Senior Executive group to consider. On the second day the focus was on looking at a number of key topics associated with being a successful organisation into the future and these topics were:
  • leading, managing and developing employees across four generations;
  • ethics and corporate social responsibility;
  • how to manage expectations; managing quality as well as efficiency; retaining good staff. Learning and development needs associated with these challenges;
  • achieving innovation through the organisation’s  focus on quality.