Overview
Strategy
Organisation
Performance
Innovation

Business Excellence

Overview

The Vision 4 proposition is based around the following core elements; these being the fundamental components of any successful business model.

flow diagram

We work with organisations in either a holistic approach or focusing on specific target areas, applying a combination of proven management techniques and extensive industry experience.The services offered range from a full strategic business review, establish the Vision of the company and delivering a business plan to succeed, to working with organisations on specific projects in any of the 4 business model components; strategic review through technical analysis to project management.

Business Excellence

Overview

The Vision 4 proposition is based around the following core elements; these being the fundamental components of any successful business model.

flow diagram

Strategy and Planning

The following components are those essential to the successful development and leadership of a business.

They centre on creating a clear Vision for the company, clear objectives and directives, before developing plans on how to design and implement.This is about “Creating the Vision” for the business….. and how to successfully delivery it !

The Importance of Vision

Setting a Vision is the most fundamental thing a business will do… without a Vision there is simply no leadership, because if you don’t know where you want to go, how can you expect anyone to follow?
All organisations need to be built around a shared dream or motivating purpose.
The best visions are short, simple and straightforward.
The point of a Vision is that it is distant and inspiring but ultimately achievable aim.

Effective Business Planning

There is often apprehension about business planning, usually as a result of the process being misunderstood, too complicated, too remote from the objectives of the business or simply not seen to add value…. something that has to be done or, worse still, not important enough to merit too much attention !
Effective business planning follows a simple, recognised and clear process. It is a combination of information and ideas, working to the Vision. The end result should be a simple document that can be communicated to all those in the business.
The process is clear and defined:
- Vision
- Situation analysis
- Organisational structure
- Services and products
- Financial appraisal
- Sales and Marketing
- Risk and opportunity
- Management control
- Implementation

Leadership

All Leaders will by necessity have to manage their business on a day to day basis; but their ultimate role is far more significant.
Today, leaders work successfully using persuasion and inspiration; simply relying on authority and hierarchy is no longer good enough
Leadership is the art of influencing, as opposed to compelling, people by persuasion or example to follow a line of action
Good leadership depends on a number of factors, including the quality of the followers.
Many modern academics often talk about participation theory, or about transformational leadership, which concentrates on the relationship between leader and follower… needing excellent communication skills and great emotional intelligence.
The most successful leaders are those that inspire their followers to perform well, rather than terrifying or coercing them into it.
Whereas previously a sense of authority was seen as the key skill, today it is emotional intelligence.
Why should anyone be led by you ?

Managing Change

The need for change is a constant and common requirement in most organisations. – The rate of change in todays world is definitely going to increase to meet technical advances and the developing structure of world economics.
Effectively managing change needs careful planning and understanding of the technical and emotional issues at hand.
A plan needs to be developed using recognised techniques, the most renowned of which is the 8 stage review designed by John Kotter (Harvard Business School)
This follows a set process starting from establishing the need for change, communication, empowerment and ultimately embedding change into the business culture.

Organise To Succeed

All organisations (to the best of our knowledge !) are lead by people; the success of most is dictated by how the people in an organisation interact and work effectively together.

How effective people are at working together, at all levels within an organisation, is achieved through design. Too many businesses consider it an effect of circumstance and legacy and do not review strategically and, when required, implement change.

Organisational Structure

Having the correct organisational structure is fundamental in how a business operates….. it establishes the brand, culture and market identity of the organisation.
There are many forms as to how a business should be structured:
- Global v Local (Central v Regional)
- U-form v M-form (what extent of management responsibility should be centralised rather than diverged into Regions or Divisions)
- Matrix management, which tends to be a combination of both of the above.

Establishing and adapting the organisational structure is critical to the success of the business.
Coming out of it will be clear Accountability and Responsibility of all those who are managing the business.

The resulting business service line model, and executive management model, will dictate how the business operates and how the business is marketed (the Customer offer).
Clear Accountability and Responsibility (and understanding the actual difference between the two) will lead to empowerment to succeed. Equally, when unclear or just plain wrong, it leads to confusion, dysfunctionality and at worst internal conflict and ultimately loss of market share (Customers recognise it and don’t like it !)

Effective Teams

Management theory abounds on how to develop teams to work effectively. Why ?; because it is complex (human emotion) to undertsand and it is vital to the success of an organisation. So the first stage is to recognise the importance of the people who work within a business at all levels….. often referred to as Emotional Intelligence.
Areas that are to be considered as part of this are:
- Collaboration and how to recognise and change teams that are dysfunctional. There are analytical processes which can be utilised to evaluate the current situation. Improvement will then come from a combination of coaching, training, interpersonal skills, trust and clear accountability. All of this will be binded together through effective communication
- Talent management starts through recognising the skills of the workforce and then aligning this with the needs of the business and the individuals…. not forgetting the needs of the Customers as well. Structured training programmes, regular appraisals, behavioural insights and coaching and mentoring all combine in effective talent management programmes.
- Employee motivation and employee satisfaction, the combination is often defined as Employee Engagement, are key ingredients to the functionality of a business. Assessing this usually comes through surveying the employees, analysing the results, developing an action plan to suit and COMMUNICATING the results.

Perform And Deliver

Results count !

Most organisations will set a series of objectives, usually detailed in the Business Plan, against which they will measure themselves. It is essential that a wide range of objectives are assessed across the business as a whole (not just financial targets)

Volume/Sales income is driven by effective market penetration and brand awareness… supported by proven capability and performance

The tools to deliver, inclusive of processes and procedures, IT and experience, need to be embedded into business operations and constantly monitored in terms of effectiveness and performance.

Measuring Success

Do you know how healthy your business is ? It is a difficult question to answer without doing a series of exercises to analyse the overall performance of the business.

All businesses tend to run a series of measures against financial performance: profitability, turnover, cash flow, forward order book, return on investment. All of these need to be carefully managed, and usually are in standard management processes.

Customer satisfaction is an area that is essential to all businesses, but equally an area that is often not considered in sufficient detail. We have developed detailed analytical techniques which dig deep into the Customer organisation, extending way beyone local/immediate relationships. These provide a benchmark for continued improvement and look at satisafction across their business as a whole.

Workplace performance review is a subject which not only assesses the effectiveness of the working environment (customers and employees) but when supported by smart tools and diagnostics helps to improve efficiency …. and profitability !

Balanced scorecards are common in assessing performance across a series of targets and agreed objectives. There are many ways of undertaking such assessments. The key is to keep the process simple and focussed; focussed on the needs of the business or the customer. Never use them to hide areas of poor performance (frequently done !)

Brand Positioning And Market Strategy

Ask yourself this about your business…… your potential Customers will !
Who are you ?
What do you do ?
How good are you ?

These series of questions and the resultant analysis and work undertaken thereafter consitute the basics around brand positioning and market strategy.
Designing a brand awareness strategy around this concept will lead to clear market positioning and development of an active and effective Marketing Plan to suit.

Delivery Tools

The following are areas where the extensive knowledge and experience in Vision 4 can help supplier organisations in improving their delivery capability and performance and, equally, end users critique, design and improve the service they receive:
- Health, Safety and Environmental
- Statutory compliance
- Procurement
- Commercial management and appraisal
- Service Level Agreements, Contracts and Specifications
- CAFM systems in FM delivery systems
- Contract mobilisation (incl HR and TUPE)
- Post Occupancy Evaluation
- Asset management and Capital Asset mapping
- Lifecycle design and capital investment
- Sustainability models: social, environmental and economic
- Capital projects design and management

Innovate and Develop

“Innovation distinguished between leaders and followers…”

“… we make money by Innovation”

Both of the above quotes are attributed to Steve Jobs, probably one of the most recognised and successful innovators of our time.

To succeed in today’s world, with it’s rapidly changing technical, environmental and economic picture, Innovation needs to be at the centre of an organisation’s planning. Too often it is at the rear (even if most companies would not admit to it !)

Effective innovation plans need designing and managing. It needs Leadership !

Innovation Plans

The development of active Innovation Plans.
Creating an innovative culture
Innovation techniques and knowledge share
Monitoring and appraisal of the IP and assessing Return on Investment.
Seeking innovation through industry association (learn from others… they are dying to share their knowledge with you !)

Innovation Through Acquisition

Acquistion is too often thought of as merely a way to increase market share when it is equally effective in increasing industry capability
One of the quickest and simplest ways to innovate is to buy in the capability that is being searched for. Innovation comes through introducing new concepts and capability. Invention is making it for yourself. Don’t confuse the two !
Everything is for sale….. at the right price ! The key to a successful acquisition strategy comes from having a clear vison and plan to start with (no surprise there !). The clever part is to have the analytical techniques and investment models to support the strategy.

LEAN Thinking

Typically, between 50 and 95% of our time is spent doing things that increase our costs and create no value for the Customer
LEAN is merely a recognised process developed (in the 1950s by Toyota) to identify and remove waste, and hence producing only what customers want… when they need it.

The basic principles are to:
- Define
- Measure
- Analyse
- Improve
- Control
- Monitor

The essential component in all LEAN projects is to keep things simple and tangible….. communicate and engage !