In today's volatile marketplace, organisations must do everything possible to ensure their operations are running as economically and effectively as possible in order to maximise desired results. In such a competitive environment, operational reviews have become increasingly important. Organisations seeking to increase the efficiency of their operations need to streamline their core operational processes, eliminate waste and improve productivity.
Our approach
While each operational review conducted is unique, being either holistic or specific to the activities of the organisation, an operational review normally involves the following steps:
- gathering data to understand the underlying nature of the problem - this includes gathering data and observing work processes both from a financial and operational perspective;
- analysing the data gathered - we use a range of analytical tools in reviewing operations and performance, including:
- benchmarking with comparable businesses to identify opportunities to improve performance;
- activity based analysis to analyse how staff and other resources are used in the operations; and
- business process mapping and analysis to identify each aspect of the business operations and assess the effectiveness, efficiency and value added of each.
- developing a comprehensive assessment of current performance levels and identifying performance improvement opportunities and a fully costed implementation programme to achieve the identified potential.
Key outcomes
- sustainable cost reduction generally involves more than one solution and as such can include a combination of incremental changes, cross department or product, service or project elimination ideas, and downsizing. Examples of incremental changes include:
- the consolidation of activities, the redesign of reporting, elimination of duplicated analysis and co-ordination of parallel activities;
- business process changes can include reviewing business requirements, eliminating manual processes, eliminating exceptions, reviewing process timings and reviewing underlying IT systems and support;
- the centralisation of back office and / or non-core functions through the establishment of share service centre structure is also an option. Examples of activities suitable for consideration in this regard include invoice processing, payroll, human resources, regulatory and legal functions;
- organisational structure re-design including clarity around roles and responsibilities, spans of control, key competencies, experience, skills gaps, resource levels for various functions, and interaction between functional lines and between the business units; and
- other suggested solutions include reviewing the outsourcing of activities or work groups. Examples of activities that can be outsourced include payroll, recruitment, media planning etc. Outsourcing can reduce costs significantly and may improve the performance of the process.
- the overall result is a solution that will enhance the long-term competitive advantage of the organisation by improving efficiencies, taking advantage of new approaches to working, changing the skills of the workforce or restructuring the organisation. It is important that solutions do not impact negatively on the performance of the organisation therefore a key focus is on ensuring that any changes relate to the right level and type of activities and overheads.