Organization, management and process

Organization issues concern all hierarchical level in any type of company. Our client range from heads of department to back office directors or executive management.

It is easy to understand that these organizational issues may concern large companies and medium-sized enterprises but SMEs are sometimes also confronted with sensitive organizational issues, particularly in the context of strong growth or, on the opposite, in the context of a recession.

Organizational consultancy missions are of two types: those dealing with the organization chart, in a “top-down” approach, and those dealing with the actual operation, in a “bottom-up” approach.

Organizational chart missions refer both to the organization of the activities into homogeneous poles and / or homogeneous divisions of responsibilities. These missions include the challenge of the management rules and choices of the executives. For instance, the questions raised may include the relevance of centralising certain functions in a holding company, the distribution of a back office by customer portfolio or implementation of a new matrix organization.

These missions sometimes include a strategic dimension when the question arises of subcontracting, relation or pooling certain activities (SSC, EIG). In this case, gains and associated financial costs complete the organization study.

The operational improvement missions are based on an Akeance Consulting method known as the “triptych”. In concrete terms, the activities are described in the form of processes. This first analysis of the activity allows to identify recommendations in terms of control, improvements of processes… It is enhanced with an understanding of the challenges (second part of the triptych) in terms of indicators for physical activities (volumes, number of files, amount of material…) and financial indicators. This second part allows a sizing of the tasks and the processes to be carried out under optimal conditions. A third part, still based on the analysis of the activity in the form of a process consists of identifying quality indicators and monitoring of the activity: duration, frequency, error rate… 

Obviously, the client’s request generally focuses more or less on a specific subject. But the triptych approach aims at making the analysis more secured and relatively exhaustive.

Organizational issues raised by a client are often the expression of a strong dissatisfaction without an identified cause behind: “the organization of my back office needs to be reviewed, clients are complaining about it”, “it’s a mess with customer relations” or “there are unacceptable delays in my accounting department”… From the very first discussions with a client, Akeance Consulting tries to identify the deep-rooted reasons for this dissatisfaction: team size, associated skills, evolution of activities, understanding of the tools and…poor organization.

For this type of mission, it is therefore particularly important to identify the client’s “real” question.

Questions relating to organizational chart or to organization in general are very often dispersed with preconceptions, certainties, or excessive simplicity. The implementation of a matrix organization for example clearly underestimates the difficulty of operating according to this mode of organization which imposes great rigor in the sharing of responsibilities. Another example relies in the belief that internal communication should or should not be combined with external communication. The creation of portfolios of customers, or products, or regions…leads to the same remarks.