Rapid Impact

Retail

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The pace of change in retail is unrelenting. New levels of consumer expectation and empowerment, enabled by social media and widely available comparative data, drive the pace of product development. More strategic participation in global supply chains is required to create faster, more adaptable delivery cycles as well as to manage risk and reputation for brand and corporate social responsibility.  Integrated, multi-channel capability is still on the agenda, made more complex by myriad new technology releases. E-tailers are moving to bricks and mortar, pop-up shops are no longer novel and on-demand delivery options drive long-term inventory and geography decisions into short-term planning horizons. Creating and maintaining customer service capabilities to keep pace with customer expectations, using fragmented pools of casual employees, continues to challenge even the most seasoned operators.

Examples of results

Children’s Publishing

Led by a strong entrepreneurial woman, this young business muscled its way into the market and many of its published series are now household names. We worked with the team to fully understand and document their points of difference and the uniqueness of their model.

Fashion house

This household name in the competitive women’s fashion sector wanted to improve its performance and better satisfy customers. Our work revealed opportunities to improve task boundaries, responsibilities and timelines and led to a complete re-design of the key business process. We engaged the whole team and used a forensic approach to question every activity in the process from the start of the season’s buying trip through to delivery of the range to stores and invoicing. In the CEOs own words “The process is now proudly displayed on the workroom wall, and is used as an example for the other companies in the Group. It means that we deliver ahead of time. It doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes but it alerts us to where things might go ‘off the rails’ and allows us to take evasive or preventative action. There is no confusion, duplication of tasks, things falling through the cracks, or omission of responsibilities. And, more importantly, we no longer have any stress in our business associated with running behind time. Our day to day business process is smooth, calm and, above all, achievable.”

Peak Bodies and Associations

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Individually, organisations and practitioners in any field find it difficult, slow and often overwhelming to make sustained industry change. The problem is that there is either one lone voice for change or that individuals and organisations cannot find enough time and resources to coordinate action. Peak bodies are in a unique position to influence change in an industry, on behalf of their members.  Yet, peak bodies can be trapped by responding primarily to day-to-day issues, or, by dealing with reactive advocacy and lobbying, rather than delivering strategic change. The challenge is for them to identify a limited, focused agenda that delivers real change. By identifying and selecting the two or three change levers, then creating a tight agenda based on these levers, sustained change is possible.

The challenge is also to find the right timeframe and resource mix to be able to scan and interpret the environment for disruptive change from other industries. Traditionally, industry groups have shaped legislation by engaging with government at all levels. Now communities must also be engaged to build social licenses to operate, whether environmental, community or single issues of concern.

With the concept of membership in decline, whether union, peak body or sporting club, peak bodies and associations need to find new ways of generating value and revenue. These positive operational levers are essential for relevance and longevity.

Examples of Results

Peak Body – Mining

We worked with the executive team to identify the game changing issues for the industry and to better structure themselves for delivery of value to members.  As well as maintaining a comprehensive service offer, the organisation continues to work with its members to influence favourable investment conditions in Australia, including identifying and driving initiatives to create a competitive labour supply pool. These two key success factors are inextricably tied to volatile commodity prices and a strategic balance needs to be sustained for the overall industry to be viable and competitive.

Peak Bodies – Medical

We have worked at both the state and federal level with some of Australias’ brightest minds to balance organisation passion and strong commitment to public health issues with the internal needs and continuing development of the profession.  Like many industries, the next generation of health professionals has very different expectations of how they train and what they expect in terms of culture and working conditions and the peak body needs a robust plan to remain relevant and attractive.

Industry body – Transport

With this executive team, we worked to identify strategies for overcoming critical skills shortages and embracing new commercial models for training, development and industry growth.  These strategies will form the basis of campaigns that highlight the technical sophistication and professionalism of the industry, and reasons for people to consider it as an exciting career choice.  This highly price-competitive industry has seen many small, family owned businesses disappear or morph into high tech, competitive international firms with complex systems and new capability sets.

Industry Body – Dairy

This agriculture-based industry continues to support its farmers to deal with highly competitive markets as many make the huge step from manual, family business to consolidated, high-tech, agricultural enterprises. We worked with a cross section of industry representatives to identify the critical data, information and support required to make robust decisions around feed and nutrition modeling, DNA and breeding technologies, animal and natural resource management, carbon footprint management, welfare issues for international export and balancing farm and animal lifecycle productivity.

Community Organisations and Issues

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Rapid Impact is privileged to work with community organisations that support the most vulnerable people in our community. The challenges are many and complex, from community awareness and acknowledgement to politically-charged funding and investment decisions. Even now, where it is more acceptable to talk about issues such as child abuse and family violence in the wider community, the amount of funding available to deal with the extraordinary number and rise of abuse victims falls well short of basic needs.

In a bid to support the complexity and diversity of their clients, these organisations have many programs and are pulled in many directions.  On a daily basis they deal with higher levels of risk where a breach of policy or an error in service delivery can have severe consequences. Not surprisingly, the compliance burdens are great yet the level and capability of resources is rarely sufficient.

Breaking the cycle requires cross-community initiatives and early intervention and so often, one service, no matter how diverse, is unable to bridge the gap. Leaders focused on progress towards sustainable change need to have heroic levels of determination and stamina as well as insight and intuition to find a strategic pathway through these issues.

Examples of Results

Vulnerable children

Every year this organisation assists over 27,000 of the most disadvantaged children, young people and families across our community.  They are ambitious, tenacious and relentless in their pursuit of improving the lives of the most vulnerable. There are ideas and plans a plenty for new and expanding services.  The challenge was to work with this inspiring team to capture the diversity of ideas, initiatives and plans, set priorities and integrate all into a single point of reference. We helped to create an implementation sequence that was logical, and most importantly, manageable.

Unlocking Sunraysia’s Potential

In this regional city, the whole community was deeply concerned about the future of its youth.  Strong community leaders assembled school principals, business owners, government departments, community and youth services to create a plan of action.  We worked with over a hundred people to create a shared plan identifying ways of keeping youth involved in the community, recognising early warning signs of at risk youth, as well as re-engaging those who have slipped under the radar. The community came together and made a commitment to act because it was clear no one group could solve the problem; housing, education, health, justice and employment all needed to be able to play their part in broader community-driven initiatives.

Regional amalgamation

A State Government restructure triggered the amalgamation of two service delivery regions. The Department chose to fund a series of half-day workshops, optimistic that the 13 existing providers across the two regions could negotiate and agree a new, integrated service delivery model. In conjunction with a subject matter expert, we created and supported a robust negotiation process that resulted in the organisations agreeing a new governance structure and operating principles.  Difficult decisions were made to shift resources within the partnership to better reflect demand, client vulnerability and system improvements. The success of this challenging negotiation within the agreed timeframe averted the need for the Department to engage in a time-consuming and costly tender process.

Royal Commission into Family Violence (Vic)

Many organisations and peak bodies are creating submissions to the Royal Commission in a bid to leverage opportunities for significant change to this high profile and highly disturbing community issue.  With little time available, we assisted Melbourne’s six largest service providers reach agreement on the common message and focused call to action to present to the Commission.

Health Services and Public Health Issues

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Public and private health providers are dealing with the relentless challenge of delivering services to an escalating number of patients, each with more complex requirements. There is a significant strategic and operational challenge because difficult choices need to be made on a daily basis about which services will be funded.

In addition to cost pressures, health services are grappling with new models of care that involve more complex arrangements such as wrap around services, coordinated care and integrated service delivery. While many of these concepts are not new, ramping up service volumes and changing models at the same time is difficult.  The introduction of competitive, specialist private providers, such as day surgery services, is successfully drawing away profitable tiers of clients from traditional providers.

Delivering services in new and different ways is challenging enough but there are also many whose organisation culture is trapped by the increasing burden and complexity of compliance. Finding ways to release and encourage people to think differently whether you are the funder or the service provider is a critical strategic capability.

Examples of Results

Private Hospital

We assisted this regional health service (part of a large national health provider) to produce a robust, evidenced-based strategy to effectively compete with other services within the group for infrastructure and service delivery investment.  While they were unable to prevent entry into the market of a new specialist provider, they introduced strategies early to mitigate their business risk.

Workforce Planning

Solving the critical shortage of health professionals to address known capacity gaps is complex.  Not only do tertiary funded places need to increase but new capacity also needs to be created within health services for student placements so practical knowledge and skills can be developed.  We supported robust debate amongst Government, health services and tertiary institutions to create new and alternative models to grow the capability of the system.  Included in the solution set was a shift in thinking for when and how simulated facilities could be better used to increase the quality of training delivered in a low risk environment.

Mental Health Pilot Initiative

The Victorian Government introduced legislative changes to the Mental Health Act, and to support these, funded a pilot program in seven health services (18 psychiatric units) to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint of patients. We partnered with a local forensic health expert to customise and translate the UK Safewards program into a format and approach suitable for the Victorian psychiatric setting.  This involved understanding the theory and practice of SafeWards, creating innovative delivery methods and establishing a learning network of professionals who had the confidence to embed and institutionalise the initiatives at each of their respective workplaces.

Government and University Collaboration

In collaboration with its fellowship partner, VicSport and Sport and Recreation Victoria, we reviewed the scope of one of the key research programs.  Avoiding scope creep is challenging when each of the parties has diverse and competing agendas in their respective organisations.  At the conclusion, all players agreed the ultimate deliverables and project milestones, outlined key elements of a detailed action plan and clarified items that were non-negotiable, discretionary and out of scope.  This challenging conversation reinforced the common ground amongst the players and positively changed their working relationship.

Medical Local

At the end of 2011, the Commonwealth abolished the Divisions of General Practice and created Medicare Locals. The interpretation and focus of the role of Medical Locals across Australia has been diverse. This Medical Local quickly established strong operational and governance arrangements. Their challenge was to focus on how to best add value to other local health services without adding another layer of bureaucracy or duplicating existing services.   We assisted to focus action plans and agree on five priorities.

Make Strategies Stick With Positive Conversations About Capability and Confidence

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Many organisations struggle to move performance reporting beyond compliance. For success, it needs to become a lever for strategic change. We help you ensure that transparency about performance, captured in your reporting system, also translates into the conversations between managers and individuals.   We’ll help you acknowledge and reward your best performers and identify those who require more support. We’ll help you create more focus and less drama in everyone’s day, unlocking their capability and confidence for more productive and powerful work.

Keep Strategies Relevant With Readily Available Performance Data

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After decades of watching organisations deliver, like you, we know that accurate, timely performance reporting is crucial. Real-time reporting allows your leadership team to proactively manage performance across organisations, departments, teams and individuals.

If you like, using specialized software, we can set you up so it is easy to track your strategy and operations.  It’s our way of helping you to make the strategy active and relevant. You won’t need to collate, update or worry about document versions.  Your staff directly report against the strategy so it is absolutely clear what they do each day and which priorities they are working on.  With a click you can produce a report for a particular individual, a department, a strand of the strategy, or a summary for the Board.

Navigate The Hard Decisions Together

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We work alongside you to navigate new ways of operating. We will be there to start new conversations and help make decisions differently. We don’t do it to you; we don’t do it for you. We work with you and your team to stay focused and create the confidence that gets change implemented. We help you overcome the inertia of the current way of operating by making sure that all your early actions send the message of change to the organisation.

Make Ideas Happen With A Clear Roadmap

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From the outset, and every step along the way, we create a clear road map so that you can be focused on the next action. Our structured and disciplined discussions will make productive use of your time, and ensure that you have the ‘big picture’ clear. From there, you can clearly explain the rationale for changes and tough decisions. We give you a clear call to action for your teams. We make sure you know what to do differently on Monday.

Build Commitment By Engaging

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We know how important it is to nurture and bring people along on the journey so they are ready to do things differently.  We don’t seek consensus – we drive toward good decisions.  We understand new directions are only useful if they are within the capability of the organisation to implement. We find solutions that are solid in fact and in logic. We help people commit, even when required actions are unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

Generate Ideas By Challenging

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We promise to stretch your thinking about what’s possible and how to get there. We bring fresh eyes, objectivity and our experience of what works. We push your boundaries, whether you’re structuring for growth or solving community issues. We find new strategic options, always with an eye on practical implementation. We insist on working with good data to produce informed decisions. Discussions are always lively, robust and challenging. We create a safe space that gives people permission to speak their mind and think outside their comfort zone.