Creating Business Change: Financial Planning company shifts to new performance level

Len, owner of a Financial Services company, talks about the challenges of creating change in his business. Better systems have resulted in more robust, reliable and valuable service for their clients.

October 2003

As Len explains:

"Pressure from changes in our marketplace over the past 18 months had forced us to carefully consider our client base. We decided to use external consultants (EWO) to help us through the process. They worked with us to identify the clients we wanted to move forward with, their needs and the manner in which they wished to be serviced. We also worked together to identify our strategic strengths and weaknesses.

It became very clear we needed to develop more robust and consistent processes for delivering our services. This would also make a more reliable and replicable model for our business. Together with our consultants we worked on a long-term strategic solution rather than short term "quick fix". We have now clearly identified our direction, addressed our weaknesses and changed our procedures in areas such as administration, IT (both software and hardware), and human resources.

The most significant changes we needed to make in the business included removing a key person and creating new procedures in order to replace that person. We also had to dramatically change our pricing procedures and re-train our sales staff accordingly. We have experienced some resounding and immediate benefits to the business.

1. Service quality is higher and more consistent
2. Our cost structure was reduced
3. Tighter long term strategy
4. Reporting is delivering more relevant and useful information
5. Cash flow is a lot stronger
6. The business has grown and we have an exit plan

The whole process took around 8 weeks from start to finish."