M&N Blog

The risk of not retaining a strategic view on your business’s risk profile is huge. Organisations have to decide whether they wish to follow a conservative, balanced or high risk profile. If they don't actively determine and reaffirm their position unfortunate surprises may emerge that can damage the business, both its short term performance and more fundamentally its brand. 

The recent Volkswagen case is a classic example. Internally one can assume they would describe their risk profile as quite conservative, yet they chose to operationally behave in a vastly different manner by breaching ethical codes. That distance between intent and action has had dire effects.

Fundamentally the risk of not actively considering risk as a core element of the planning process could put you out of business. 

M&N further strengthen our M&A and Finance transformation team, as well as organisational design capability, leadership, and culture. We are pleased to announce that James Brown and Michael Doran have joined the M&N team as Principal Consultants.

With over 20 years senior finance experience with some of Australia's for most companies, deep M&A experience plus extensive finance function transformation experience, James will spearhead our M&A capabilities and also lead our Finance Function Rejuvenation and Development practice.

Having led major Leadership, Organisation Design and culture change programs locally and internationally, Michael will spearhead our work in the culture change, leadership and organisation design arenas.

We warmly welcome both to the team!

M&N have been busy helping our client's merger and acquisition activities!

I’m pleased to take the opportunity to update our followers on some of our recent merger and acquisition related activity – we've been busy – in the major private equity, listed ASX and state owned enterprise sectors.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

Strategies should be simple

Many organisations that I have come across develop over complicated strategic planning processes leading to plans that lack the clarity and succinctness required to fully engage their employees. They often struggle to understand how to simplify the process and the benefits from doing that.

My philosophy is that for strategies to be useful they must be clear and actionable. They need to lead to the development of simple and practical delivery pathways. They need to galvanize the energy in the business behind a common goal.

Read more here - http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/keeping-strategy-process-simple-make-useful-david-mackenzie

“Engaged employees are in the game for the sake of the game; they believe in the cause of the organisation,” – Paul Marciano, PhD.

Successful strategy delivery is achieved by people engaged in the organisation and the strategy being implemented. Strategies can’t work without the right people, who are genuinely engaged, enthusiastic, and passionate about the organisation’s direction and goals. They bring entrepreneurism and drive, they find a way to make things happen, and most importantly they are leaders.

Engaged people are truly, from the core, excited about what they’re involved in. They inspire others around them and other businesses you are working with. No strategy will be effectively delivered if the team are not genuinely engaged.

Gallup, internationally recognised leader in employee engagement, categorises workers as engaged when they are enthusiastic about, involved in, and committed to their work. In 2013, Gallup reported that only 24% of employees in Australia were engaged at work. 60% of employees were not engaged, indicating they lack motivation and have “checked-out”, and 16% actively disengaged, meaning they are unproductive and negatively impacting the workplace.

Hi Folks

As you know one of the things we pride ourselves on is helping our clients get real results. To that end one of the key parts of our planning methodology is geared towards helping our clients prioritise the initiatives that need done to deliver on their business agenda and set delivery up for success. I'm pleased to be able to share a recent client's testimonial in that regard. 

  “One of our core requirements was to agree and prioritise our many initiatives to deliver on the strategic agenda. M&N took us through a superb process. In my many years in the industry I can confidently say that the prioritisation methodology and process they used is the best I have experienced.”

We've been bust in this space recently and have just completed the planning processes for both Willoughby City Council and, in the NGO sector, Taldemunde Youth Services. Great to bring our skills to bear to help such worthwhile organisations.

Best wishes to all

Hi there.  Here's a quick update as to whats going on in the world of M&N. Its been an exciting month or two for us.

The main points of note are that we have further extended our strategy consulting support in the Health Care sector. We recently took the Board and Exec of an aged care business through our strategic planning process, with very positive feedback. Watch this space for a testimonial that will be posted soon.  We now have broad reach into health care, having done strategy, transformation and change management assignments with clients covering ohs, clinical services and aged care.

Our project management team continue to play a major role supporting QBE'S transformation program. PMO leadership is a strong and evolving capability of our team. We have also been providing change management support to operational excellence and sales process initiatives for QBE.

Lastly, we are proud to have been appointed to the pre-qualified panel of preferred consulting partners to NSW Government, for our strategy consulting, strategic planning, transformation, program management and process improvement capabilities.

More updates soon!

regards

David

Hi there, and welcome to our new website. Hope you like it.

The catalyst for the new site is that we’ve restructured our business into the 4 aligned service areas in which we operate; those being Strategy Development, Strategy Implementation, Change Management & Risk Management.

Our fundamental proposition and differentiation in the market remains the same – we deliver strategy. We make strategy happen, helping you get results and to realise your business ambitions .

Our “no bull” mantra still prevails. What does that mean? – in simple terms its about openness, transparency, integrity and pragmatism. This is how we work with our clients, being objective and respectful, with a focus on achieving the best outcomes for your business. Of course openness and transparency includes an open invitation to check us out from our previous clients.

As we’ve restructured our own business, there are a few key changes I’d like to highlight.

1. We have further strengthened our strategic planning methods
2. We have established a risk management practice
3. We have strengthened our program governance capability
4. We have established a change management practice

Strengthening our strategic planning methods

In the Strategy Development space (where we are already well known as leaders in the strategy planning process) we have further strengthened our proposition to formally incorporate blue ocean thinking and strategic risk management considerations into our core approach. We see these as core elements of the Board and CEO’s strategy development process. Contact me at david@mackenzieandnoble.com.au for further information.

Establishing a Risk Management practice

Acknowledging the importance of setting and managing the risk agenda, (in both the strategy development and implementation phases) we have established a focused risk practice under the leadership of Martin Barter. If you’d like to know more, Martin can be contacted ay martin@mackenzieandnoble.com.au

Strengthening our Program Governance capability

Delivery requires great governance and effective program management of the delivery agenda and portfolio. We have further strengthened our program governance and management team through the appointment of Kim Joss as leader of our PMO capability. Kim may be contacted at kim@mackenzieandnoble.com.au

Establishing a Change Management Practice

Delivery is ultimately all about the people. Sustainable success requires aligning strategy, operating model and culture in a fluid environment. We have established a change management practice to support the change and culture evolution agenda at both the collective and individual level. John Davey is spearheading this for us. He can be contacted at johnd@mackenzieandnoble.com.au.

We welcome your feedback at any time and look forward to blogging and sharing through the year.