Australian Railroad Group strategy

Australian Railroad Group strategy setting, business planning and performance measurement

Business Issue

The Bulk West division of the business was undertaking significant change to maintain existing contracts and build new business in bulk freight haulage markets. This change led to a restructure of the business that created four customer and geographical portfolios led by Business Managers who were responsible for the P&L performance and workforce management of their division.

Approach

This project was undertaken to implement a consistent planning framework and process that enabled Business Managers to confidently set strategy, challenge the status quo and achieve growth targets, with strong emphasis on tangible actions and results.

This included design, facilitation, support and integration across four Business Units.

The first stage of the project involved the development of an agreed planning framework and process, and facilitation of a workshop to set the direction and context for Business Planning. The second stage involved facilitation of four workshops and assistance with the development of Business Plans that clearly translate strategy into action. The role also involved facilitation support to Business Managers to produce valid and reliable key performance indicators to monitor business performance.

Results Achieved:

Business plans were created for each division, with workshops well received.

Capability Management

Air Force Capability Management (Business Intelligence System) Analyst Support Services

A Gateway company has been engaged to supply two senior Strategic Capability Performance Analysts and two Business Analysts to form a capability management “Centre of Expertise” within Headquarters Air Command. The four Analysts are integral members of the ACCF management team and responsible for the ongoing support and maintenance of the ACCF.

Duties include:

Undertake strategic analysis of capability performance.
Assist with capability performance data capture, upload, verification and validation.
Assist with the development of the Air Command Capability Framework.
Provide specialist advice on strategic capability performance.
Assist with training and coaching of Defence personnel on strategic performance analysis.
Assist with capability performance target setting including algorithm development.
Assist with capability performance reporting.
Provide online and in-person User support to Force Element Groups.
Coach allocated Force Element Group Capability Management staff.
Contribute to the maintenance of ACCF related documentation
Contribute to the System Governance and Management

Communication Strategy

COMMUNICTION STRATEGY

Since 2009, our member (Anecdote) have worked with some of Australia’s biggest companies to help develop and communicate their strategies. These clients include AIA Australia, Bayer Australia, KPMG (Diversity and Inclusion, Tax and Management Consulting groups), Origin Energy, IBM Technical Sales, `QLD Department of Transport and Main Roads, Boehringer Ingelhelim (Asia and Europe businesses), Office of Living Victoria, World Vision Australia, Department of Human Services and People Services Division within Defence People Group.

Anecdote uses a combination of its internationally recognized experience in business narrative techniques and traditional strategic planning processes that produce exceptional results for clients. These approaches are rapidly being adopted by innovative organisations seeking to deal effectively with the complexities of their operating environments and the increasing rate of change.

The following are project summaries:

Our client was extremely frustrated and described how significant effort had been put into developing the company’s strategy. To communicate the strategy, the CEO did a national roadshow, giving presentations on the strategy at every major site. 2 weeks after the roadshow, the head of strategy had a meeting with a group of senior managers. She asked them to share some of the key take-aways about the new strategy so she could give some feedback to the CEO. None of the managers in the room were able to provide anything more than a shallow appreciation of the strategy and its implications. Two months later, after engaging Anecdote, the strategy had been converted into a strategic story and nearly 50 leaders were activity telling the story throughout the organisation.

A large Australian energy company had invested a year’s effort and nearly $1 million in developing an IT strategy. The strategy was 87 pages long and the executive summary was a 26-slide PowerPoint deck. The deputy CIO called us and described how he was confident he had a reasonable grasp of the strategy, but he knew that it was too complex to communicate effectively to executives or to the staff. We worked with the leadership team to convert the strategy into a strategic story and we then taught the leaders how to confidently and authentically recount that story. About 3 months later, the deputy CIO called us and described how he had visited a small site in country NSW. He was amazed. Nearly every staff member there could give a reasonable account of the new strategy.

The CEO of one of the big four professional services firms in Australia was an advocate of diversity and inclusion. He saw it as important to the firm's growth, winning business and sustainability. But, apart from a small group of passionate supporters, most partners saw diversity and inclusion as a 'nice to have'; something that was a diversion from the business of making money. He knew that without getting the partnership on side, there was little chance of the firm becoming a market leader in terms of diversity and inclusion. After developing a firm-wide diversity and inclusion strategy in 2012, he was looking for a way to engage the partnership to be the advocates for a step-change in the firm’s culture. He engaged Anecdote to develop a strategic story for diversity and inclusion. After engaging many parts of the firm in crafting the strategic story, we ran rollout workshops across the country to teach leaders how to tell the story, customized for their part of the business. The response from the majority of partners was overwhelmingly positive.

One of Australia’s biggest federal government departments was formed through the amalgamation of four previously separate departments. 30,000 staff were providing services to almost every Australian. But there was enormous resistance to attempts at integration. Each area continued to maintain their own brand and identity, despite specific orders from the Department head to stop doing so. One of the senior leaders had attended an Anecdote workshop several years before and called us in to see if we could get consistent messaging to the entire division. We were able to craft a strategic story describing a 20 year journey of consolidating service delivery activities, and how this consolidation may access to services much simpler, particularly for those most disadvantaged and most at risk. After opposing the project throughout its duration, the internal communications team had a one-word response when they heard the leader told the story for the first time. The response was ‘Wow!’

Business Restructure

Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital - Restructure

The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital is a world leading specialty treatment and research establishment. Based in East Melbourne with over 50 outpatient clinics around Victoria, the Hospital provides eye, ear, nose and throat services to over 243,000 people a year.

Project

The Hospital had identified limitations in all key facility and IT support functions that were impacting on day to day support and patient handling operations. We were asked to review all support activities from IT through security to building and equipment maintenance and recommend organisational, systems and personnel changes to improve effectiveness and commence a cultural change. Our services included:

A detailed review of all areas of support by discussing current operations and future plans with individual departments including new facility planning, maintenance, security, patient records, IT systems and existing hardware support.
Further reviews of the current and future needs of the hospital and research arm with senior management, doctors and sample nursing staff over the full shift operations.
Analysis of the current planned and future needs of the hospital in conjunction with a cross section of key personnel at all levels.

Results Achieved

A new organisation and reporting recommendation was developed and presented to the hospital executive along with staffing change recommendations and training suggestions. The new organisation was accepted and staff changes and replacement implemented.
The key areas of maintenance, security and IT systems and support yielded immediate benefits with ongoing change management and training being actioned.
Improved response times, more effective structure, greater job satisfaction from support staff and process/ structure that reflected the true needs of the nursing and research facilities in the hospital.