Service Snapshot: Improving Performance

Penumbra is uniquely placed, using a research-led consultancy approach, to bring together best in class research tools and consultancy skills to highlight areas of opportunity and improve performance across the board.

Challenge

We have to improve to survive. The world changes fast and we cannot “do what we have always done” and expect to prosper. Improving performance at all levels is the goal of any organisation that wants to thrive. The question is – where do you start?

Organisations often find it difficult to take a step back and look objectively at their business. Staff and senior management are so involved in the everyday issues of running the business, that ‘standing back’ is difficult.
It’s all too easy to carry on doing what one thinks works and not to analyse fully what is working well and why; and what could work better or be done differently.

Organisations should take periodic soundings of their performance in a number of areas:

• Staff performance
• Product or service delivery performance
• Supply chain and logistics
• Financial performance
• Marketing performance

It is useful to decide what are the key indicators that measure performance and success and then to revisit them annually or periodically so that you can understand what shifts are taking place and why. From these, you will be able to measure your performance more effectively and move positively in the right direction.

Solution

It’s much easier to identify performance improvements and engineer change with some outside guidance rather than to try and do it entirely from the inside.

The Penumbra approach gives you the answers to “where do we start and what do we do?” We will help you understand your starting point that we measure from, it will help:

• benchmark performance
• produce ideas on performance improvements
• will motivate staff to achieve

Our solution is research-led. We suggest a research process that suits your needs and your budget and then review the findings with you. It is then your decision how much you want us to be involved in implementing some, or all, of the recommendations arising from those findings.

The research can focus on all areas of performance or on any particular areas that you know are causing you problems; so it may be that any review covers staff and logistics for instance or covers just one aspect of the business or, on occasion, all of it.

There are a number of different approaches and we will help select the optimum one for you. This may include:

Preliminary Scoping

• A review of current statistics to enable us to have a view of what is collected internally, how these are used, and whether the “right questions” are being asked of the data available.

• Workshops to discuss with yourselves and a range of stakeholders how the organisation is working and define key performance indicators and determinants of success

Second Stage

The second stage will include:

• Some interviews ideally with some outside experts knowledgeable about your sector

• Qualitative research involving in-depth interviews and focus groups with staff to understand internal dynamics and what they “think”. This helps understanding of the distance between your goals and their goals and also how aligned staff are to performing in the way the organisation needs

• A fuller quantitative survey with a wider range of staff to understand how they feel they perform against key targets and what ideas they have to improve organisational performance.

The analysis of the statistics and the insight from the research provides the data needed to undertake an overall review of performance, suggest improvements, and then we can work to make these part of an organisation’s processes and thinking.

Benefit

Any organisation benefits from knowing how to improve. With Penumbra you will have

• clear goals and targets that provide valuable signposting of success,

• staff that feel they belong to an organisation that knows where it is going

• the ability to allow achievements to be celebrated

Being part of a ‘learning and improving’ organisation makes everyone feel good, staff and stakeholders alike.