The Investment Banking division of a large financial services company had undergone a previous reorganisation that had not fully delivered on its intended objectives. Critical capabilities had been split across departments creating organisational design issues in the business.

The following issues required resolving:

• A lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities;
• Overstretched Executive and immediate reporting layer;
• Sub-optimal use of talent and skills;
• Lack of visibility of integral nature of the business value chain;
• Lack of clarity of impact of regulatory and market changes on the value chain;
• Overly complex governance flow and structure; and
• Lack of understanding of the impact of the long term business strategy on capacity, roles and long-term sustainability of the organisation.

Objectives:

The overall objective of the project was to develop an appropriate structure across the organisation considering the desired design criteria and potential constraints arising from the identified issues.  Further objectives included:

• Ensuring clear functional ownership and accountability across the value chain;
• Optimising and leveraging capabilities and skills across the business;
• Ensuring that the organisation structure supported the ability to have an integrated and consolidated view of key components for strategic decision making; and
• Ensuring that the (internal and external) support functions were optimised.

Approach:

Organisational Scan

• Interviewing of Exec across all departments to understand the business model and strategy;
• Understanding of previous changes to structure and options considered; and
• Value Chain and RACI mapping across all departments.

Development of Design Options

• Designing of options for the revised operating model;
• Development of initial structure options reviewed against design criteria;
• Identification and documentation of benefits and concerns for each option;
• Identification of new roles required; and
• Identification of impacted roles.
• Development of implementation plan.

Solution:

• Optimised structure for Execs, managers and new roles;
• Detailed roles and responsibilities documented for Execs, first line reports and new roles; and
• End-to-end business value chain

Client Feedback:

“Your facilitation skills, your independence, your constructive and inclusive approach have been invaluable in non-invasively creating involvement and required focus at all levels of the business around many aspects of the org design process.  You have facilitated a strong foundation for the next steps in the process, and assisted us to crystallise our challenges and strengths in this process.”