Case Study

Grow Management Consultants specializes in leadership consultancy. It has been operational since 2010. The company offers a range of services to assist companies to assess leadership behavior of existing managers and performance metrics. They also design and implement customized leadership programs based on the assessment. Services are offered Australia-wide.

The company offers regular professional development workshops on all aspects of leading and managing staff. The workshops are conducted every 3 months in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, where they also double as networking events. The workshops are also offered to businesses, who run them as part of their management education programs. In 2018/19, the company ran a total of 36 workshops. The Operations Manager, Donna Chisholm is responsible for organizing and developing all the workshops. Workshops were turned online during the pandemic and business was not adversely affected. In fact, more people were able to attend for a lesser cost - especially those in regional areas.

The senior consultants run the workshops. They, and their assistants (who also work as consultants), then use the contacts generated there to get commissions to carry out management-level assessments and projects for the company.

The workshops are the principle means of advertising for the company's consultancy services, where most of Grow Management Consultant's income is generated.

Each year the company runs a Leadership Conference in October and Dan Streep, the Administration Manager, has been responsible for the Conference for the last two years. The speakers are invited Industry and academic leaders who are well known and respected within the industry. Most of them rarely speak in public, which means that the Conference is always well attended. It has shown a small profit every year it has been run.

The company has also produced an E-book Business Growth Leadership Techniques. The E-book has had reasonable sales, but these have mostly been restricted to workshop attendees, where they have been well received. Several senior consultants have expressed interest in writing an eBook in their area of expertise. The eBook was identified as a company asset that could generate more income with more effective marketing, and Erin O'Donnell, who has been the company's marketing manager for three years, was appointed the eBook Project Manager.

You have recently been employed by Grow Management Consultants as Program Manager. You are responsible for coordinating these three company projects, ensuring that they support each other in accordance with the Strategic Plan and Project Management Policy and Procedures.

The key objectives of the program are:

For the Conference, workshops and eBook publishing to support each other to achieve mutually beneficial goals.

For all Grow Management Consultants' projects to be financially viable and inclusive.

The CEO is keen for you to take overall leadership of the program, develop a program vision and then promote this to the staff.

Grow Management Consultants

Strategic Plan

2020 - 2023

Welcome

Welcome to the Strategic Plan for Grow Management Consultants.

This document sets out our vision for the next three years and how we hope to achieve it.

We hope you enjoy reading this document.

Paul Burns

CEO

Grow Management Consultants

Executive Summary

Established in 2010, Grow Management Consultants is a management consultancy company specializing in providing services to companies to assist them to improve the leadership performance of their staff. Grow Management Consultancy draws on its up-to-date knowledge and skills in best practice leadership concepts to assist clients with leadership performance.

Mission Statement

Grow Management Consultants are committed to promoting individual and organizational leadership excellence. We are providing mentoring training, coaching, consultation and program evaluation; offering cutting edge tools, resources and expert advice; sharing best and next practices; leading organizations through the process of creating a leadership culture; and recognizing and celebrating excellence in leadership.

Our values are:

Core values underpinning our activities are:

Quality

Innovation

Respect

Reliability.

Strategic Priorities

To be well led, high performing, profitable and accountable

Ensure that all financial operations, performance indicators and results support the strategic policies.

Identify new and expand existing sources of revenue, including establishing a training college to offer accredited training in leadership.

Achieve profits of at least 10% per annum.

Develop services to meet customer needs and aspirations

Increase range of services offered to include change management and diversity.

Hold an annual conference.

Increase sales and range of e-books.

Continue building deeper customer relationships

Customer-centered practice, with a focus on meeting their total needs for high-quality management.

Strengthen the skills of our people, to better support customers.

Drive innovation to better meet customer demands.

Attract, engage and develop the best staff

Continuing the drive to a customer centered, high-performance workforce and culture.

Strengthening the skills of our people, to better support customer needs.

Empowering innovation and responsiveness to change.

Continuing to enhance the diversity of our workforce.

Employing additional consultants.

Developing our human resources by implementing a formal human resources framework.

Exploring the use of technology in human resources.

The Market

The Management Consulting industry has grown weakly over the past five years. Poor demand from downstream markets constrained industry revenue growth, with financial services and resources firms cutting spending on management consultants due to economic uncertainty and falling commodity prices.

However, businesses using management consultants to introduce new business processes and enhance operating efficiencies have partly offset this trend. Industry operators have also increasingly incorporated analytics into their services, which offer clients greater understanding of their business and clients. Demand for services backed by analytics is expected to contribute to growth of 3.8% per annum until at least 2025.

Research also shows that there is a need for workers to have strong leadership and management skills to support collaborative management, managing teams for a distance, empowering others and business acumen. Thus, the demand for leadership consultancy services is still strong.

Situation Analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
Value and quality Strong management Customer loyalty Friendly organizational culture Level of available finance for investment	Brand name not developed as yet Small organization
Opportunities	Threats
Leadership skills in demand Opportunities to offer a range of services Opportunities for synergies across all services and products	High level of competition Economic downturn meaning less spent on consultants Failing to satisfy clients demands

Marketing Strategies

Our marketing strategies aim to:

build our brand

generate leads now

convert those leads quickly

have every part of the business supporting each other.

We plan to develop our market share by:

improving our marketing and advertising

continually improving the quality of service given to clients

maintaining effective communication channels with all stakeholders to ascertain industry requirements and then develop products and manage services accordingly

continually improving communication channels with all our stakeholders, ensuring a flow of timely and accurate information to facilitate effective planning and decision making

targeting identified growth markets with planned, market appropriate campaigns employing a variety of promotional strategies and advertising mediums

offering attractive fee structures to our clients

continually improving the skills, knowledge and effectiveness of Grow Management Consultants through our commitment to training and development

regularly reviewing the effectiveness of all our operations and making improvements when and where necessary.

Marketing priorities

Design and develop a monthly newsletter to send out to all clients.

a blog page on web site to provide regular latest news.

Key projects

Leadership Conference

Grow Management Consultants provides Leadership Conference every year in October. this year's Conference. Dan has been responsible for the Conference for the last two years. The speakers who are invited are industry and academic leaders who are well known and respected. Most of them rarely speak in public, which means that the Conference is always well attended. To date the conference has shown a small profit every year it has been run. However, we aim to synergies between all of our key projects to increase the profits created by the conference. See below.

Workshops

Grow Management Consultants also offers regular professional development workshops on all aspects of leading and managing staff. The workshops are conducted every 3 months in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, where they also double as networking events. The workshops are also offered to businesses, who run them for their management as part of their ongoing education programs. In 2019/20, the company ran a total of 36 workshops.

The workshops work very well as a source of advertising for the company's consultancy services, where most of Grow Management Consultant's income is generated.

Again, a small profit was made, however, we aim to synergies between all of our key projects to increase the profits created by the workshops.

Ebooks

Grow Management Consultants has also produced an E-book Business Growth Leadership Techniques. The E-book has had reasonable sales, but these have been restricted to Conference and workshop attendees, where they have been well received. Several senior consultants have also expressed interest in writing an eBook in their area of expertise. The eBook was identified as a company asset that could generate more income with more effective marketing. The plan is to write three further Ebooks to be launched at the conference and workshops this year.

Synergies across projects

We aim to synergies across all of our projects to offer a greater choice of services to customers, increase profits and grow our brand presence.

For example, planned future actions for 2021 include setting up a membership scheme whereby clients can access a number of workshops a year plus the conference plus a number of ebooks. The cost of the membership will be cheaper than buying all of these services individually. The number of services to be offered will need to be discussed by project managers.

Diversity policy and procedures

Diversity vision

Diversity management benefits individuals, teams, our company as a whole, and our customers. We recognize that each employee brings their own unique capabilities, experiences and characteristics to their work. We value such diversity at all levels of the company.

Grow Management Consultants believes in treating all people with respect and dignity. We strive to a foster a supportive and understanding environment in which all individuals realize their maximum potential within the company, regardless of their differences.

We recognize the importance of reflecting the diversity of our customers and markets in our workforce. Grow Management Consultants' diversity encompasses differences in ethnicity, gender, language, age, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, physical and mental ability, thinking styles, experience, and education.

Managing diversity makes us more creative, flexible, productive and competitive.

Recruitment

Grow Management Consultants recruits' employees from many different cultural, linguistic and national backgrounds. This provides us with valuable knowledge for understanding our customers.

Career development and promotion

Grow Management Consultants rewards excellence and all employees are promoted on the basis of their performance. All managers are trained in managing diversity to ensure that employees are treated fairly and evaluated objectively.

Community programmes

We recognize that racism, ageism, sexism and other forms of discrimination are problems both for our organization and society as a whole. Grow Management Consultants is committed to tackling cultural stereotypes both within and outside our organization.

We have clear reporting procedures for any type of discrimination or harassment combined with follow-up procedures to prevent future incidents.

Diversity bodies

Our commitment to diversity is led by our diversity champions who come from all levels of the company, from top management to the shop floor. The diversity champions make up a diversity committee, which is responsible for ensuring that our diversity policy is articulated in the day to day running and the strategic direction of the company.

Diversity practices

All employees undergo diversity training. Diversity training encompasses raising awareness about issues surrounding diversity and developing diversity management skills.

Grow Management Consultants provides a safe and pleasant environment for our employees. We offer:

flexible working time arrangements

employee education assistance

employee network and support groups

open communications

childcare assistance

mentor programmes.

Conflict management and escalation Policy and Procedures

Purpose

Problems, misunderstandings and frustrations may arise in the workplace. Grow Management Consultants aims to be responsive to its employees and their concerns.

The purpose of this policy is to provide a quick, effective and consistently applied method for a nonsupervisory employee to present his or her concerns to management and have those concerns internally resolved.

An employee who is confronted with a problem may use the procedure described below to resolve or clarify his or her concerns and will not be subject to retaliation for filing a complaint under this policy.

Responsibilities

Managers must ensure that:

they identify, prevent and address potential problems before they become formal grievances

they are aware of, and are committed to, the principles of communicating and information sharing with their employees and volunteers

all decisions relating to employment practices are made with consideration given to the ramifications for the individual, as well as the organization in general

any grievance is handled in the most appropriate manner at the earliest opportunity

all employees and volunteers are treated fairly and without fear of intimidation.

Employees must ensure that they attempt to resolve any issues through their immediate supervisor and through internal processes at the earliest opportunity.

Before escalating the process, employees and managers should provide guidance, counselling, mentoring, coaching etc. to limit additional conflict or future problems.

All parties are to maintain complete confidentiality at all times.

Procedures

Step 1: Discussion with supervisor

Initially, employees should bring their concerns or complaints to their immediate supervisor. The two parties should discuss the matter openly and work together to achieve a desired outcome. Employee may bring along a representative to this meeting.

The Manager must ensure that the manner in which the meeting is conducted will be conducive to maintaining positive working relationships, and will provide a fair, objective and independent analysis of the situation.

The immediate supervisor should respond in writing to the complaint within five days of the meeting held with the complainant employee.

Step 2: Written complaint and decision

If the discussion with the immediate supervisor does not resolve the problem (or if the supervisor does not respond to the complaint), the employee may submit a written complaint to the employee's senior (e.g. General manager, CEO).

o Take accurate and detailed notes of all conversations (including dates, people involved) and attach any supporting documentation.

o Employees may request assistance with writing their complaints from the human resource (HR) department.

o The employee's senior should forward a copy of the complaint to the HR department.

o The submission of the written complaint is due within five working days of the response from the supervisor and should include:

the problem and the date when the incident occurred.

the date when the employee met with the immediate supervisor.

a copy of the immediate supervisor's written response or a summary of his or her verbal response. (If the supervisor provided no response, the complaint should state this.)

suggestions on ways to resolve the problem.

Upon receipt of the formal complaint, the senior manager must schedule a meeting with the employee within five working days to discuss the complaint.

Within approximately five working days after the discussion, the senior should issue a decision both in writing and orally to the employee filing the complaint.

Step 3: Appeal of decision

If the employee is dissatisfied with the decision of the senior, the employee may, within five working days, appeal this decision in writing to the HR department.

The HR department may call a meeting with the parties directly involved to facilitate a resolution

Step 4: Further action

If it cannot be resolved at senior management level, it may need to be referred to an independent body such as the Fair Work Commission.

Additional Guidance

Grow Management Consultants reserves the right to impose appropriate disciplinary action for any conduct it considers to be disruptive or inappropriate. The circumstances of each situation may differ, and the level of disciplinary action may also vary, depending on factors such as the nature of the offense, whether it is repeated, the employee's work record and the impact of the conduct on the organization.

Define and document the roles and responsibilities associated with

Include:

Roles (your own role and at least two stakeholders)

Responsibilities

How your role contributes towards the broader goals of the work environment

Develop a draft vision statement.

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation for use at a meeting with program stakeholders.

Include:

• rationale for a program vision
• your draft program vision
• alignment to company mission and values
• roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved in the program and its vision.