Business Transformation


Cooperation + Knowledge Management


Project Recovery


Operational Restructuring

The Agility of a Startup. The Stability of a Corporation.

Although it is in the nature of markets to change quickly and continuously, many enterprises find it difficult to design their structures and processes in a way that ensures a sufficient degree of agility or a capacity for timely reinvention. Failing to resist the forces of inertia, they cling to unsustainable business models. If they persist, they run the risk of losing their market relevance.

Enterprises that want to change and develop successfully need to be willing to liberate themselves from conventions and to discard solutions that have ceased to be effective. Doing so requires transparency, clear guidelines and effective mechanisms of communication and control. This is because business transformation is a long-term and demanding interpersonal process. When properly calibrated and implemented, however, it can lead to robust growth and a state of agile stability – first at the level of organizational structure and then on the market.

For more than 25 years, I have been helping medium-sized companies, large corporations and NGOs complete successful transformations in response to developments of varying degrees of urgency. I am a business transformation consultant to various enterprises, ranging from Lufthansa, Siemens, Dräger and UTA to the Ministry of Finance of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Business Transformation

Working on the continuous development of business models and organizational structures, winning over stakeholders and providing a reliable framework for change. Actively managing complexity, conflicting expectations and inconsistencies as natural parameters of influence.

Cooperation + Knowledge
Management

Efficiently linking competence to processes within the enterprise so that decisions wind up being made where the knowledge is. Reinforcing cooperation so that knowledge gives rise to action.

Project Recovery

Professionally analyzing the state of problematic projects, respectfully communicating the results of analysis and identifying pragmatic solutions. Stabilizing the current situation, creating a basis for trust and implementing the right restructuring measures together with the stakeholders.

Operational Restructuring

Optimizing structures and costs. Systematically analyzing value chains and streamlining them with an eye to enhanced efficiency, productivity and customer support. Implementing innovative technologies to expand development options, and updating management approaches to reinforce sustainability.

Shortcut

The Difference between Change and Transformation

In my work environment, I’m often surprised at how often managers use the terms »change« and »transformation« as if they referred to one and the same thing. A look at newspaper articles, corporate publications and even the business literature can also leave one with the impression that the terms are perfectly interchangeable. As a matter of fact, however, they are not.

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Example

A Clash of Cultures

What is the best way to reconcile two contrary project cultures so as to secure a project’s successful completion? The subsidiary of a prominent airline wanted to automate its sales processes at 40 locations around the world, while also introducing a uniform CRM system to enable better and more efficient customer service. Indeed, a complex transformation project!

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Shortcut

Analog Thinking in a Digital World

Markets are changing at an accelerated rate and enterprises are struggling to keep abreast of the changes. Having fallen prey to inertia, once powerful corporations have lost their market relevance, while small, agile and sometimes brash startups have advanced to the status of global players. In short, enterprises on many markets and in many industries have suddenly found themselves in a VUCA world, i.e. a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. How are they to survive in this complex world?

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Example

Entering the Chinese Market

How do rescue a prestige project that’s on the verge of failure? By doing the right things. And by doing the right things in the right manner. Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH is a provider of global services to business travelers. In 2008, the company entered into a joint venture with the state-run airline Air China, with both companies hoping to exploit the Olympic Games in Peking as a springboard. At the time, it was a spectacular move on the part of both companies – and a high-profile project that could not be allowed to fail.

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Shortcut

Change & Transition

We are subject to reading and hearing many famous quotes in regard to change management: “The only constant is change” (Heraclitus) or “Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” (John F. Kennedy) and there are many more quotes which would be worth mentioning. Of course, with all our discussions about the inevitability of change management, we may create the perfect illusion that change can be faultlessly managed by checklists.

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Example

The Struggle for Market Share

With group sales of around EUR 3 billion, UNION TANK Eckstein GmbH & Co. KG (UTA) is one of Europe’s leading providers of fuel cards and service cards. Not long ago, however, the enterprise was forced to respond to major changes on the market, as new competitors emerged and the enterprise’s existing competitors seemed to have an easier time adapting to the new requirements. In the wake of the changes, UTA lost clients and market share.

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Business Transformation Management

My role is that of a guide to corporate executives and management teams who face the important task of securing the sustainable development of their enterprises – including the people, structures, processes, IT systems and business environments on which they are based – in response to critical market developments.

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