How to Rapidly Improve a Company's Ability to Grow & Scale: OIC's Operational Velocity Assessment

Snapshot 

Challenge 

Companies, large and small, often hit a point where they are challenged to grow and scale.  It is usually a problem of organizational design, skills, or role clarity; poor or absent processes and tools; and/or a poorly constructed product and services portfolio that doesn’t meet the needs of a rapidly changing market. The leaders recognize that they have issues, but they are unsure of how to begin to address them.   

Result 

They quickly need a clear, actionable, and prioritized roadmap of steps they can take to establish a firmer foundation, fix what is broken, and align the entire team toward the organization's goals, tools, processes, and portfolio to drive growth and scale. 

Pain Points 

In reality, what enabled a company to reach a specific size and revenue number was sometimes less planned than cobbled together as the company grew, addressing issues reactively rather than by design.  Unfortunately, there comes a time when what got you to a certain point won’t scale, and you find your company has plateaued, or worse, is losing marketing share.    

Competition is intensifying, and your team lacks the agility to navigate a rapidly evolving market.  You know you have issues, but you are either too busy putting out fires, or don’t have the strategy to define what’s needed to move forward at speed.  You may also have leaders in key positions who face challenges that exceed their skills and experience.  You don’t want to spend a lot of time and money, but you know you need help. 

Solution: Operational Velocity Assessment 

Crafted from decades of collective consulting experience for companies ranging from global technology giants to start-ups, OIC Advisors has developed the “Operational Velocity Assessment.”    

When we use the term “Operational Velocity,” we mean the state a company has achieved that enables it to grow, scale, operate, and pivot at speed.  They have strategic alignment internally, supported by the leadership, culture, processes, methodologies, and toolsets that enable them to quickly adjust to changing customer, partner, and market dynamics. 

Depending on the size of the company, this assessment usually takes from two to four weeks, and results in detailed findings and recommendations, and a prioritized roadmap to make rapid improvements.  We have helped companies successfully address years-old organizational, process, tools, and portfolio issues in a matter of weeks or months. 

Although the assessment can be tailored to a client’s specific needs, there are three foundational phases we tackle together with our clients, as follows.    

Phase 1: Knowledge Transfer 

In this phase, OIC reviews as much data as possible about the client’s current state strategy, financials, and portfolio.  Where documentation exists, we ask to see what is listed in the first column.  No new documentation is required on the part of the client.   

We review the above and any other existing collateral we can access to understand the current business strategy and operations, and how they present themselves to the market.  This provides an excellent foundation for OIC to begin to diagnose core challenges in Phase 2.    

A recommended, but optional, exercise in Phase 1 is leveraging OIC’s proprietary survey approach.  A detailed and anonymous Employee Survey is sent to team members to gauge their understanding of company strategy and their sentiment on key operational issues.  This data helps to objectively depict the current state of the team’s morale, buy-in, and alignment to company strategy. 

Phase 2: Workshop(s) and Analysis 

In this phase, we conduct one-on-one interviews with key leaders and team members; the number of interviews can vary, but is usually less than 12.  We then hold one or more workshops to get clarity where we have received inconsistent interview feedback, and also to test out early assumptions of potential solutions to scale.  The interviews and workshops usually cover a wide range of focus areas, which are called out in column two of the graphic.  

If conducted, we also analyze the results of the Employee Survey, which provides rich data, and often highlights sentiments that the leadership team may be unaware of – this is very helpful to rapidly defining and prioritizing solutions.  We stress that understanding the pulse of employee sentiment on an ongoing basis is critical to both retention of top talent and to organizational scale. 

Phase 3: Findings, Recommendations, and Prioritized Operational Velocity Roadmap  

In the final phase, we synthesize everything we have learned and prepare a set of clear and high-value deliverables.  These include the strategic findings, recommendations, and options called out in column three.  The Prioritized Operational Velocity Roadmap enables the client to see a path to rapid improvement.   

Where we can, we also freely provide IP to speed the transformation.  This might include new role descriptions, process documentation, a toolset strategy, or enablement IP.  If we have the content and can help you improve more rapidly, we are happy to provide it as a value add.  

Once we’ve reviewed the deliverables, our clients take time to understand and assess the content, and then we meet again to develop a detailed action plan for executing the roadmap. 

For clients who have also executed the Employee Survey, we recommend that they hold a special Company Meeting to review the summary results, and to communicate what actions they will take to address specific points of feedback. 

Sample Outcomes  

1. Security Technology & Consulting Company: introduced a deals desk process, which reduced the average time to develop and get approval for a bid by ~50% 
2. AI Start-Up: provided an end-to-end customer engagement process to drive consistent delivery across multiple siloed customer delivery teams  
3. Fortune 15 Technology Company: Provided strategic guidance and process recommendations to the cross-functional team undertaking a global offer transformation; provided organizational design, customer success best practices, and hands-on program management for offer modernization (tools, engagement model, data, etc.)
4. Security Consulting & MSP Company: Defined processes, tools, and training to enable the company to go from 0% of employees being subject to a regular performance management cadence, to 100% of the company 
5. Managed Services Provider: Provided recommended future portfolio of offers to drive growth and go-to-market differentiation
6. Off-shore Software Development Company: Provided roadmap for portfolio transformation and global expansion to help the company pivot from a staff augmentation firm to an IT consulting services company

How Can OIC Produce Accurate and Actionable Results So Quickly?  

As part of OIC’s culture and delivery methodology, we have a bias for action and speed.  Over years of technology, process, and transformation consulting for companies of all sizes, we have seen the same issues over and over again.  Many of the mistakes we see, we have made ourselves in past roles, and we’ve learned over time the fastest and most effective ways to address these common pain points.  We want to add value quickly to help our clients achieve the Operational Velocity they need to remain competitive.