Slightly ambitious title, that. But if you’ve read the other papers in our ‘How To Think About’ series, you’ll know what we’re driving at.
At Armstrong Craven, every client project is bespoke, but 80% of them fall into one of the same four broad categories: Organizational Design & Talent Mapping; Location Analysis; Perception Analysis; and Compensation Studies. It’s the other 20% we’re going to look at here. These are the anomalies, the one-offs, the left-field, occasionally downright bizarre projects which address a need no client is ever likely to have again. But for all their peculiarity, there is one thing all these projects share in common.
They happened because a business leader knew how to think strategically. Here are five ways you can do the same thing . . .
1. Decide what’s important to you
The reason most projects fall into those above-mentioned categories is because human beings think alike. Our brains run on the same software. If everyone’s talking about AI or diverse hiring or EVP, there is a default assumption that these things are important. And maybe they are at market level. But what is important to you? Is there something that nobody is talking about but which has the potential to transform your particular business? If you let yourself be swept up by
the latest fashionable conversation, you’ll never find out.
We see the same thing with data. People think the available data is the important data. So naturally they focus on things like turnover, headcount or reporting lines. But we work with a select number of clients who ask us to curate other, far more valuable data because it feeds into their requirements.
For example, we looked at revenue per employee per region for a healthcare company. We also broke down departmental costs at an auction house and compared these with the equivalent at their nearest rival. And, working with our Executive Solutions colleagues, we have devised a formula for calculating which candidates are most likely to be open to a headhunt call. It’s not infallible, but it’s surprisingly reliable and it uses data most people wouldn’t even think of looking at.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask
Most bespoke projects come out of a conversation that was ostensibly about something else. It usually goes like this. Just as the meeting is winding up, the client says “Oh, actually, there was one other thing . . .” The tone is offhand, jocular, as though what they’re about to ask may be slightly foolish. In other words, they’re pretty sure they have a problem that can’t be solved, but they’re just doublechecking.
And then they find it’s not so impossible after all.
This was how we ended up working on a project for a government revenue authority that wanted to measure its service lines against those of other offshore tax havens. Assuming they were looking for insights that nobody would be willing to share, they nearly didn’t bother asking us. But luckily they did, and six weeks later we delivered our completed report.
What keeps us awake at night is the thought of all those projects we never worked on because the client just presumed we wouldn’t be able to help. Remember, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
3. Get Other comapnies involved
Some projects revolve around highly sensitive information. That’s probably why a lot of other projects never reach us – the client couldn’t imagine that sources would ever share their secrets. And it’s true, getting people to divulge information on pricing, pay levels, sales figures or operational costs can be challenging.
But why not trade your information for theirs?
Recently, we worked for an oil & gas company who wanted to benchmark annual running costs for a suite of energy plants. We threw the question back at them, asking if they’d be willing to divulge their own costs to a competitor? They decided they would, so we devised a solution which could potentially benefit not just our client, but the whole industry.
It took some organizing, but we eventually established sources in nine other companies who agreed to trade their own statistics in order to gain access to industry averages. The result was an invaluable cache of data which desk research would never have revealed but which we got via a series of emails and telephone calls in just three months.
It won’t always be the solution, but it’s worth thinking about.
4. Stop thinking short-term
One question we always ask at a client briefing, is ‘when do you need this data by?’ Invariably, the answer is last Tuesday, but sometimes clients surprise us with a timeline of six months or more. These tend to be the clients who have learned to think long-term. They see challenges looming on the horizon and do something about them immediately.
That’s great for us and them, because most bespoke projects take a long time. We have researchers all over the world and we like to think we work quickly, but some things can’t be rushed.
We once did some work for a PE firm who wanted data on over 100 ethanol plants in the US and Brazil. That meant contacting dozens and dozens of plant managers and persuading them to speak with us. We also had to hire an extra Portuguese speaker. The whole project took over half a year. We could have rushed off a shorter, less complete report in under half the time, but fortunately our client was after quality rather than speed.
We’re good at what we do, but there’s no point pretending every project is easy. Some are difficult. They take time. But as long as our clients are identifying their needs early, that needn’t be a problem.
5. Use our network
Our reports can be long and detailed, sometimes well over 100 pages. But the value of a piece of insight can often be its rarity rather than its volume.
So instead of always thinking in terms of pie charts, bar graphs and pages of analysis, why not explore the idea of a scheduled conversation with an industry expert?
Not sure who to speak to or how to get in touch with them? That’s where we come in. We can do everything from drawing up a shortlist of sources, approaching them with the problem statement, negotiating financials and convening the conversation itself. Most such conversations last an hour or so, and because all parties understand the purpose and terms of the exchange, there is nothing you can’t ask. Well, within reason.
We work across tech, financial services, healthcare, consumer goods and pretty much every sector in between. If we don’t already know a bunch of suitable sources, we can easily find them out for you.
We’re very proud of our insights reports. But if they’re not what you need, no problem. Why not use our network instead?
