Independent Boutique Consultant Quickly Positions Client for Success

We’ve talked a lot about how the top consulting firms are turning to digitization and asset-based consulting to find success, but the principle applies to smaller firms, too, all the way down to boutique consultants working independently. In fact, because an independent boutique consultant has fewer resources than larger firms, the ability to automate manual work and scale business is especially important.

One of our customers, an independent boutique consultant who works with global companies facing business transformation, met with success recently when she used 9Lenses to digitize her Capacity Framework, which helps businesses understand what they need in order to undergo transformation successfully. The client, a national energy giant, was facing massive, business-threatening industry challenges and needed to act fast to transform the business and keep ahead of competition. The CEO hired Rita Trahan to analyse the business from top to bottom and recommend practical solutions to position the company for the future and improve performance.

The business needed deep insights to gauge the company’s readiness for change

In order to assess the company’s capacity for change, Ms. Trahan knew she needed to collect large amounts of detailed information from multiple data sources across the organization in a very short time. To interpret the data and suggest solutions, she also needed to connect ideas and perceptions within the data quickly and effectively. This was not a traditional engagement survey, which would provide only flat, surface-level data, but a detailed, company-wide analysis.

“To truly transform a business and make it fit for the future, you need more data than ever before. The days of engagement surveys are over.” ~ Rita Trahan, Chief Capacity Officer

To keep the client motivated for change, empower individuals to drive the transformation, and deliver visible strategic results, Ms. Trahan needed to be able to draw conclusions from the data that would enable the CEO to act fast. Ms. Trahan also needed to collect disparate data that existed in the organization to clearly discern all the silos and disconnects revealed by the information collected, a problem that the 9Lenses digital consulting platform solved through its structured approach to automated data collection and analysis.

Ms. Trahan used 9Lenses to interview over 1000 stakeholders in less than 6 weeks

Using 9Lenses, Ms. Trahan examined four areas of the organization, which she terms the Capacity Framework. Using its four dimensions and thirteen sub-dimensions, she examined the organization’s strategy, vision, solutions provided, and leadership brand. With the data collected and organized in the 9Lenses platform, she was able to show the executive leadership team the areas of misalignment and highest challenges and priorities and demonstrate the business outcomes that could be achieved by tackling these areas.

Additionally, she identified the top five high-level priorities for the company as well as identifying some “quick wins” that could be gained through the introduction of some simple but highly effective culture habits. Of the over 8000 comments collected, over 50% were recommendations for how to improve the company as it prepared for transformation, demonstrating high levels of commitment and involvement throughout the organization. Due to the speed of the software, Ms. Trahan was able to conduct the engagement, from designing the interview to presenting results to the client, in less than six weeks.

Using 9Lenses, Rita Trahan was able to help the company position itself for a successful business transformation

The 9Lenses data validated Ms. Trahan’s conclusions, enabling her to present a strong, compelling case to the client for change.

“9Lenses provided the innovation and power of being able to take rich insights and provide a company with something that’s a real hard look in the mirror and is always actionable.” ~ Rita Trahan, Chief Capacity Officer

Ms. Trahan presented the results to the organization first before presenting to the executives. The CEO, leadership, and organization were empowered, motivated, and excited about the results in terms of the recommendations made, the speed of the entire engagement, and the active involvement of the organization in reaching those powerful conclusions. The organization is now transforming and raising its performance to be fit for the future.