The Predicament

An engineering services company had been owned and operated by two lovely gents for over two decades. The business was going well, had grown steadily, had a great reputation and an admirable culture. However although it was still ‘their baby’ they were both a bit ‘over it’ and looking for a way to change the way they operated to ease their burden.

After the initial discovery process it became obvious why they were so exhausted. They hadn’t modified their approach in years, despite the impressive growth and the rapidly changing business environment in which they operated. Things were staying on the ‘to do’ list because there was just ‘never enough time’ to get everything done – which was creating further fires that needed to be fought. In essence they weren’t running the business – IT was running THEM.

The Approach

Establishment of clear goals:

• They wanted to remain working in the business but without the unsustainable levels of stress
• They wanted better oversight of where the business was at and a clear path of where it was headed
• They wanted to continue to provide their clients with amazing service but without the headaches
• They wanted to ensure the above was achieved

Thorough analysis of existing people capability and capacity and identification of gaps, resulting in a ‘rightsize’ of the management structure:

• Recruit a General Manager to take the day to day weight off their shoulders
• Increase the number of Project Managers to efficient delivery of services to clients with protected profitability and effective use of resources
• Improve efficiency of site teams by reducing amount of paperwork required to be completed on site – resulting in more ‘productive’ man hours
• Scrutiny of systems and processes to identify inefficiencies and areas of risk – allowing

The Results

• Owners MUCH less stressed and more in control. They are taking more holidays!
• A clear separation between Governance and Operations is providing clarity around our decision making and the strategic direction we are pursuing
• The turnover has more than tripled in 12 months as the changes we have made to the business has allowed us to:
  • Optimise opportunities within the ‘core service’ delivery function of the business providing strong baseline revenue growth
  • Maximise
• The staff are highly engaged, have a clear definition of ‘what success looks like’ and are all working towards common goals – further increasing the positive momentum in the business