Change Management: Developing an ambitious 6-month program focusing on profit return

Concentric Consulting focused stakeholders from four separate Amey specialist units to develop a business case for growth – a critical requirement in aligning with the group’s ‘FIT 4 The Future’ transformational agenda.

Brief

Aligning business unit roles in Amey’s wider transformation plan

With the ‘FIT 4 The Future’ agenda, Amey was undergoing a process of widespread business change. Key stakeholders from four business units needed to understand how the business drivers for change affected them and to create a roadmap for meeting their targets.

This included:

• Defining the need for growth by reviewing the current and future landscape
• Defining what was required to achieve growth targets and align with strategic growth opportunities
• Finding a collective offer of new ways of working to deliver on growth priorities
• Identify next steps to drive growth in commercially strategic areas

Concentric was tasked with designing, managing, and delivering a 12-month change program covering all of these areas using the outcomes from 4 business growth workshops.

Delivery

Exploring, identifying, planning, and managing a strategy for growth

Concentric designed this change management program across three key phases:

Understanding business drivers and encouraging collaboration

Our initial session was focused on understanding the business need for ‘FIT 4 The Future’, including the commercial, and transformational challenges involved in growth. Concentric looked at the core services provided by the four business units and how these needed to align.

Concentric then identified business functions that could be shared internally, identified growth opportunities and the requirements to deliver them. Opportunities were discussed in open forum in a carefully constructed atmosphere of positive dialogue, stakeholders could share their learning and ideas around each opportunity, then prioritise them against a set of robust growth criteria.

Establishing business growth for Amey

Following the initial sessions, Concentric equipped the business units with the tools to focus on their individual growth areas. These included:

• A growth opportunity matrix to measure ease of implementation against value to the business
• A risk, reward and blockers matrix to feed opportunities through a theoretical gate and assess what was required to bring to market
• A resources and capability matrix to identify available and missing resources
• A timeline for developing a business and delivery plan

Ongoing Program Management

Finally Concentric used the output from the program to build a process of actions, owners, progress, timeline, and escalation process. This was used in bi-weekly conference calls to manage and measure progress and provide a forum for team members to share knowledge and use Concentric as an advocate.

Outcomes

Empowered teams and market-focused opportunities

Concentric worked with Amey’s business units to provide essential context for growth and strategies for aligning activities, resulting in:

• Simplified processes and procedures
• Reduced costs with shared internal expertise and fewer external resources
• Clear business plans, financial discipline, and work prediction
• Market-focused business opportunities
• Empowered, involved teams with ownership and accountability
• Closer working relationships and knowledge sharing

This resulted in embedded tools and techniques that were agile and transparent supporting the growth strategy, process and delivery.