Client Stories > Senior Team Alignment & Strategy Execution: Financial Services

Senior Team Alignment & Strategy Execution: Financial Services

Aligning Executives to Drive Development and Strategy at a Financial Services Firm

Client Case Study

Situation
This global real estate and financial services company with over $1B in annual revenues was formed by a merger of a North American firm and a European/Asian firm. The North American part of the firm had grown rapidly via five strategic acquisitions and went public.  The firm needed to improve its organic growth rate and operating systems to compete.

Complications

  • Integration: When we began working with the North American division, it was struggling to integrate its new businesses and capitalize on cross-business growth opportunities.
  • Silos: Senior leaders and their organizations operated almost wholly independently in silos which inhibited customer success.

Approach
The COO of the North American division recognized that major changes were necessary in the organization. He engaged us to gain alignment at the Senior Team level with the conviction that the rest of the organization could not get aligned and work effectively together until the senior leaders did the same.

During the company’s Senior Team Alignment Process, we helped the Senior Team become a more unified group, by:

  • Creating clear norms and values
  • Developing a consistent strategic view of the business and its future using a Strategic Business Framework to gain strategic alignment.
  • Examining what stood in the way of achieving the objectives described on the Framework.

After identifying the six most compelling challenges, the Senior Team selected a group of 48 high-performance, high-potential leaders in the business to study the issues and develop solutions. Working with us, the company then launched a custom Performance Leadership program to provide the cross-functional project teams with a structure and process to facilitate the successful completion of the project work

  • The teams worked for 100 days on their projects, aided by the support of a Senior Team sponsor and a coach.
  • Check-ins along the way ensured consistent feedback from members of the Senior Team as well as the other project teams.
  • The Performance Leadership programs concluded with each team proposing final recommendations and clear implementation plans to the Senior Team, followed by real-time yes/no decisions on each recommendation.

During the Performance Leadership program, each project team member had the opportunity to work on his/her leadership behaviors, receiving coaching and feedback from his sponsor, coach and other teammates. Each team member also had the chance to try new roles and learn about other parts of the business, in effect joining the Senior Team in the strategic decision-making process. And, of course, the projects themselves yielded tangible, bottom-line results for the company.

Results

  • $30m NPV: The “Corporate Solutions” team’s recommendations yielded the greatest results. All the business lines have increased their focus on prospective multi-service companies. One large client opportunity was a direct result of this focus.

    On an NPV basis, this win by itself was worth $30 million to the firm. In the first year, three additional assignments were won as a result of this project, generating $5 million in revenue and $1.5 million in profit in the first 12 months.

  • Decreased Average DSO by 25%: Based on the recommendations of the “Economic Profit” team, the company instituted strict rules relative to receivables. Within six months, the company’s receivables were reduced from 72 average days sales outstanding to 54 – resulting in reduced borrowing costs and interest savings of $700,000 annually.

    In addition, the company restructured contracts in order to receive reimbursed payroll up-front, saving the carrying charge that they had incurred in the past. For one large client alone, the company saved $200,000 annually in working capital costs.

  • Increased Profitability: The “Client Profitability” team’s recommendations focused on improving the profitability of clients. Key outcomes from this project included a new fee structure for low profit accounts and a re-prioritization of support for high profit accounts. These changes have resulted in increased client profitability and new business.
  • Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For: The “Attract and Retain” team recommended changes that promise to increase employee satisfaction scores and reduce voluntary turnover over the next three years. The company saw improvements in both areas in the first 12 months of implementation.

    Via the team’s efforts, and after several years of sustained work on the initiative, the company also achieved its long-term objective: earning a spot in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Related Information

LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

Ovid

As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue.  In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture, and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

AKQA

Having recently completed an acquisition that doubled our size and geographic reach, we needed to redefine our “go forward” plan to address the increasing commoditization of our marketplace.

I was very impressed with the thoughtful and practical way that LSA Global was able to bring our leadership teams together to gain focus, buy-in, and commitment to a compelling strategic plan that we created together.

Jon Troen
CEO

Mittera_Logo-LSA-Grobal

Great job in designing the Mergers and Acquisition strategy session for our global leadership team. The session was excellent.

I gained additional insight on the importance of the role of HR regarding strategy, culture, and people in Mergers and Acquisitions and would recommend LSA to anyone looking to align strategies and cultures.

Gloria Veon
Senior Vice President, Human Resources

Fujitsu

At a time of change in our marketplace, LSA Global did an exceptional job helping our executive team create strategic clarity by helping us to define, clarify, and prioritize our corporate vision, mission, values, differentiation, target clients, strategic priorities, success metrics and key roles.

They beautifully navigated a very difficult and fuzzy situation, respectfully cleared out all of the cultural elephants, and shared impactful insights and leadership development theories along the way. They have transformed our business.

Laurie Sewell
President & CEO

Servicon-logo

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

McKesson

We got great value from the executive strategy session.  We would not hesitate to use LSA again with our Executive Leadership Team.

Natalie McCullough
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer

Service Source

Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans.  First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

Then they helped facilitate the design of a strategic growth plan that is clear, compelling, believable, and implementable. We now have 100% commitment from an aligned leadership team and key stakeholders going forward.

I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

Erik Arvesen
Vice President, General Manager

We consider LSA our true business partner.

From Strategic Facilitation and Planning to Presentation Skills and Management Training, they continue to provide excellent value and extremely high quality solutions that make an impact.

I recommend them to anyone looking for a practical approach to drive true business and people results.

Michelle A. Mitchell
Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources

We selected LSA Global over 5 other companies to help our key executives improve their overall communication and executive presentation capabilities. LSA exceeded our expectations.

I highly recommend LSA to any executive team looking to better organize and more effectively deliver key executive-level messages — especially when the stakes are high.

Todd Power
Office of the CEO

The LSA customized Organizational Alignment Survey gave us a comprehensive view of how our employees experience our culture, talent, and strategy.

The systemic approach provided us with a great forum to discuss the strengths and opportunities in our organization, and then to quickly get focused on the key actions critical to executing our business and people strategies.

Mark Forrest
General Manager, FSM Division

Trimble

LSA helped us to create the strategic clarity and alignment we needed for our team to thrive.

The practical, no-nonsense, and outcome-oriented approach really helped us all get on the same page and set us up to be a high performing leadership team to focus on what matters most.

Michael Carter
VP Human Resources

Samsung

LSA worked with our Executive Leadership Team to help create strategic clarity and alignment as we look to increase our growth rate and unlock innovation.  They masterfully handled very complex, challenging, and high stakes leaders, decisions, and cultural nuances to help us identify what matters most and move toward one unified direction.

Their practical, straightforward, and client-centric approach was refreshing.  I highly recommend them to any executive team looking to get aligned to create even higher performance.  They are lights out awesome!

Patrick Resk
Chief Financial Officer, Partner

Porter Novelli logo LSA Global

LSA Global really shifted our perspective about strategic clarity and organizational culture.

The 3 C’s approach to workplace culture is very practical and really helps  executive teams – even skeptical ones – ensure that your culture is healthy, high performing, and aligned.

Amy Cappellanti-Wolf
Chief Human Resources Officer

symantec logo LSA Global

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant.  The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

AKQA

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