Strategy implementation process - Case Study

Implementing strategy within a fund management company

Our client was a fund management company serving private and institutional clients. The firm had developed from a stockbroking background, where individual stock decisions were being made by staff who also acted as relationship managers and investment analysts.

This operating model was becoming increasingly high cost relative to the competition but, perhaps more problematically, it was also a high risk model. Regulatory changes required an ever more consistent and justifiable basis for investment decisions, and clients would increasingly compare investment returns. Where individual stockbrokers were 'doing their own thing' there was a severe risk to the firm's reputation, especially in challenging market conditions.

We worked with the senior management team to develop a plan for implementing a strategy based on reorganising and lowering the firm’s cost base while retaining the key elements of personal service delivery for the firm’s private clients. Implementation of this strategy then involved leadership development, reorganisation, knowledge management and the implementation of new systems.

The main leadership challenge was helping the leadership team to develop new skills and act as exemplars of the new way of operating. They were helped in understanding the impact of the changes on the roles of the staff, and how their behaviours would need to change depending on the new roles they fulfilled.

The reorganisation revolved around establishing a central investment process, and the separation of the client relationship management role from investment decision making. Making this successful required new roles, skills and approaches to staff development.

Separating the investment process from the management of client relationships required new ways of managing investment knowledge. Whereas before, in the combined role, the stockbrokers would do much of their own research, make decisions on clients’ portfolios, and manage the client relationship, these roles were now separate. Much of our assistance focused on how the investment knowledge could be transferred effectively between the staff, through establishing the forums, knowledge bases and systems support necessary to make the new roles effective.