Fact: the manner in which a company perceives itself is often the principal obstacle to major structural change—even when that company knows it needs to radically improve its performance. However, the question that most company managers have the greatest difficultly agreeing upon—and which is actually at the core of how, and where, a company should be looking to improve itself—is “What is it, precisely, that our clients and customers value most about our company?” But, even if you are able identify your company’s core competencies, how do you go about the business of pushing your organisation in an entirely new direction—especially when it has almost certainly devoted much of its existence to one or two core competencies? And even if you uncover, or define, a new core competency, you cannot simply abandon your old way of doing business and charge off in a totally new direction. Instead, you should take your currently successful way of doing business as a point of departure, then move your company—carefully and systematically—in the new direction you have chosen for yourself. The next big questions are: How do you accomplish this transformation? Are you sure that the new core competencies you have settled upon are, in fact, the right ones? When, and where, do you begin to make the changes? Can you accurately calculate the time-frames needed to accomplish each stage of the makeover? And do you have the internal resources to manage the change process? If the answer to any one of these questions is “no” (or, “we’re not sure”), then you should seek outside help before doing anything.
If this is your situation:
- You want to explore the full range of performance improvement possibilities that e-enabled networks and alliances can offer.
- You have to find a way to standardise—simplify—your company’s internal communications systems, especially your intranets.
- You require assistance evaluating your company’s finance operations, identifying weaknesses, and designing improvements that work.
- You believe that outsourcing some of your company’s non-core functions will help to reduce costs, but you don’t know where to begin.
- You need to better align your IT functions with your company’s overall operational functions.
- You have to greatly improve the effectiveness of your work force and offer improved services in such key areas as recruitment, training and development; performance management, diversity and ethics.
- You must put into place the kind of tax structures that will allow your company to minimise its transfer pricing taxes, but this requires a level of knowledge your own staff do not posses.
How PwC can help you.
At PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) our highly-trained professionals can help you achieve superior performance by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your company's key business operations. You will find that we have a complete grasp of all the areas in which you might need—finance, risk management/compliance, IT systems, operations, and human resources. And, we can also help you identify—and implement—cost saving initiatives, improved management control, and risk-management processes. In addition to being able to provide hands-on assistance to improve financial under-performance and cash-flow management, we can also show your staff how to manage the people aspects of the changes you would like to make. Finally, we can assess the current state of your security and controls and work with you to achieve an effective security and controls approach. Just call us and we can provide you with everything you need to accomplish the changes you want to make.
