After a long period of healthy growth, the UK arm of a global recruitment group underwent 4 years of zero growth and rising costs. They were over-dependent on a very small number of large clients from which it was becoming increasingly difficult to generate reasonable returns. There was little innovation in the company and new initiatives were rarely followed through beyond discussion stage. We were asked by the Chief Executive to work with his new Board to develop a vision for the future and a strategy to achieve it.

Setting the Direction
The recently arrived Chief Executive of a long established UK recruitment company, part of a global group, was determined to create a clear actionable strategy to drive the business forward for the next five years. He decided to gather a new team around him for that purpose. He wanted new ideas and fresh energy in order to move away from the current position of diminishing margins and over-dependence on a very small number of large low margin clients. At the same time, some new international competitors were starting to emerge, as well as new business models. The company needed to change or risk being left behind by the competition

Our brief
We were asked to work with the Board and with a small internal support team to develop a well-researched strategy and a business plan that would provide the blueprint for the organisation to move forward. The exercise was also to be used as a working project for the new Board and a means of building alignment and teamwork between the new appointees.

How we did it
We kicked the project off with a detailed work-plan for gathering all the necessary data. This acted as a work programme for the small internal support team under our direction. It involved a mixture of desktop research, internal information gathering with the help of the support team, and detailed analysis of the data, all supplemented by a series of workshops with the Board to generate ideas and commitment . We researched the market, the competition and its strategies, evolving customer needs and likely future trends. Every few weeks we met with the Board, shared our latest findings and agreed the next steps. The final output was a detailed plan plus recommendations for a revised organisation structure appropriate to the new business direction.

What Happened?
In the following year the business results were the best in the global group and the strategic plan was shared internationally. The Board acted on the information that had been collected in order to cut back on rising costs and seek to improve margins and also recognised the need to have more effective information collection and monitoring systems in the future. The recruitment business has suffered in the recent economic downturn but this company was able to weather the storm.