Background
It had been determined that the then current operating structure for this commercial insurance company was impeding its growth plans. Consisting of two multi-branded businesses that operated autonomously, they had their own management and organisation structures, offices, processes and IT systems resulting in them being costly to run and uncompetitive.
What we did
We were engaged to lead the definition of how the businesses could be best combined and to shape the transformation programme that would deliver it.
We conducted interviews and workshops, and analysed performance and financial data, to understand how they currently operated, and where improvements could be made.
During this exercise we realised that the main challenge to a successful merger was that both businesses had their own culture and ethos. We managed this sensitively as part of our stakeholder engagement and communication plan, ensuring that we reflected the motivation behind their differing perspectives. Furthermore, there were significant differences between the staff roles, level of responsibilities and skills required, which needed careful consideration when developing the future structure and ways of working.
We facilitated further sessions with senior management to address these and other issues, and developed a single consensus Target Operating Model (TOM) covering all commercial and operational teams.
We used the TOM to develop business change impact assessments and transition plans showing the agreed incremental step change in capability, and evaluated and quantified the benefits to support the business case.
The Result
By streamlining processes and IT systems, and by upskilling and sharing resources, our client was able to realise £14m efficiency savings whilst preserving separate financial and performance reporting.