Client Services: Case Studies
The Problem
Our client, a vibrant and well-placed Design Consultancy with important plans for expansion, was finding difficulty in reaching experienced talent in the application of vital research to design methodology, largely due to a pronounced shortage of qualified candidates in the local marketplace. The difficulty lay in sourcing Designers with the right academic and professional background and with the kind of social qualities so important in ensuring a successful cultural fit with our client’s young, creative and highly-qualified team.
Our Response
Red Talent initiated the project with a keen focus on a truly collaborative response, capitalising on the dual assets of the client's unrivalled knowledge of the international Design Consultancy market, coupled with our own expertise in candidate evaluation and profile analysis. Our initial strategy was to consult with the client on possible areas where candidates could be identified, with particular attention to overseas markets where a significant candidate pool existed. We honed in on a group of professionals whose profiles promised a likely fit, singled out the prime candidates for a sequence of contacts and passing through a series of highly-focussed remote and face-to-face contacts.
The Solution
Once we had analysed all the alternatives, we prepared our feedback centred on a thorough overview of candidates’ professional capacities; an honest appraisal of their motivation for the project and their ability to take on the challenge of an intercontinental relocation. Our client now has the team structure they required and through our efforts has the reassurance that successful additional team growth is only a phone call away.
The Problem
Our client, a recognised international authority in CRM Billing Systems, was deep in negotiations with a Spanish telephony operator and on the cusp of signing an important and wide-ranging contract to develop and maintain a complex bespoke solution. The success of the negotiations would depend on our client's capacity to set up a development team of specialists familiar with the system technology, and the challenge would be locating and recruiting these specialists from a limited local candidate pool, all in a climate of uncertainty over the project start date and definitive dimensions. Potential candidates would all be currently engaged in ongoing projects and not necessarily actively seeking a job change.
Our Response
After agreeing resources to be dedicated to the search, we assigned a team of consultants combining technical expertise and local business knowledge whose initial brief would be to identify possible candidates through investigating current market activity and isolating those organisations where similar projects were afoot. Focussing on our own database and its extended contact potential we put in place a strategy for identifying key qualified personnel and incentivising them to cast a wider net to capture contact information for development specialists with similar backgrounds and skills and experience levels. Building a miniature skills-specific database we then set about qualifying all potential candidates, evaluating their profiles according to a finely-honed profile matrix and grading candidacies by availability, economic pretensions and skills variables.
The Solution
Once our client had concluded the round of contract negotiations and the project had been green–lighted, we were able to provide an immediate through-flow of candidates ready and motivated to hit the ground running and start delivering the solutions. Our client was free to adapt his response at all stages of the contract negotiation in the knowledge that staffing resource flexibility was being expertly managed by Red Talent.
The Problem
Our client is among the world's top three Business Process Outsourcing providers, with over 16,000 employees actively engaged in the delivery of high-quality IT solutions over a wide range of business sectors. Their dominant business model is the distribution of development tasks between clients' own teams, on-site teams from their own resource pool and offshore groups located at their southern Asian headquarters. Firmly established as the leading services provider in a number of high-profile European projects, they began to encounter difficulties in securing work permit authorisations for some of their key employees earmarked for vital roles in the onshore development groups.
Our Response
In close collaboration with our client, we analysed in depth the types of profile needed to cover this critical shortfall and set about identifying talent from within the local candidate community. Alongside the crucial technological skills and development know-how, candidates would need special communications skills to ensure smooth and effective liaison within the established organisational model. We focussed on a series of initial tests to guarantee not only a high degree of technological competence but also outstanding linguistic and supervisory skills present in each of the candidacies we recommended. Drawing on our extensive networking resources, as well as a sharply-focussed advertising campaign, we identified a stream of highly-qualified development experts ready and available to slot neatly into the program, primed for the complexity of the task and fully-briefed on the criticality of their personal contribution to the project.
The Solution
Our client was able to meet corporate timing and workload objectives avoiding any reduction in the intensity and rhythm of the development tasks due for completion, and at the same time benefitting from a rich enhancement to the multicultural character of its local project team. Strong footholds were thus established for further growth in the regional marketplace, having been brought on board a group of highly-motivated specialists ready for wider-ranging international challenges. At the same time, our client's profile among the local candidate community was consolidated, identifying the company as a highly-attractive employer for those professionals aiming for a rapid and rewarding international reorientation of career prospects.
The Problem
We received a request from our client, a leading global communications company, to discuss a challenge with the performance and performance management of their midline Managers & Senior Executives. Their market will continue to change rapidly on a global basis but they had the technology and vision to exploit a clear competitive advantage. It was not enough for the business to rely on their existing clients - they wanted to generate new business in new markets. They needed to ensure their Management were capable of driving performance in new markets, with new products and services and with new clients rather than farming existing relationships. They needed behavioural profiles of their Managers that were set against an ideal proficiency model for their various roles.
Our Response
After detailed discussions that defined an exact business requirement, we presented a flexible solution based on a programme of Language and Behavioural face to face interviews to capture individual profiles. Concurrently “proficiency models” were defined for each specific role to identify what behaviours were required of an ideal sales performance driver in the new structure.
The Solution
Once the profiles had been analysed and interpreted by our Consultants a clear view of the fit between what the client wanted of their Management and the behaviours of each individual was established. The gaps identified were resolved through the design and execution of individual development strategies for each Manager and Executive. Organisation behavioural change was delivered through highly interactive workshops and embedded using a programme of focused coaching and mentoring. The solution resulted in the client developing Management in a very focused and resource efficient way.
Behaviours changed and performance has increased by 30% resulting in a 25% increase in profitability. Managers are retained for longer and future Management and Executive recruitment is now focused on the behaviours required of the proficiency model. They are achieving significant new business success in their new markets.
The Problem
An International Retail Bank approached us with a performance problem in their inbound/outbound call centre. A change in their product portfolio had meant inbound customer service agents were now expected to sell using outbound behaviours. Their existing behaviours were predominantly service based and because of the change they were suffering from 54% agent turnover and low levels of proficiency. They had undertaken some basic sales training in the past but were not seeing the change in behaviours or profitability that they expected.
Our Response
After consultation and diagnosis we recommended the client return to basics and assess what the change in business requirement demanded of the agents, and then build a clear proficiency model for the role. Once this was achieved we initiated a Learning Path programme designed to build a framework that would deliver proficient new agents to the call centres and develop the in place population. Behavioural Coaching was the methodology used to embed the new behaviours into the agent population. At the same time Red Talent provided the Bank with the internal capability and knowledge to deliver a pilot Learning Path and supported a full roll-out. We accredited their Call Centre Team Leaders and Managers alongside their internal Learning and Development Trainers to design and deliver Learning Paths.
The Solution
The pilot was a great success with the new agents increasing their revenue generation and profitability by an average of 25%. Selling behaviours were embedded throughout the population and the culture of the call centre has become sales performance focused. The client has embedded the Learning Path methodology as a core framework for all learning and development initiatives and a driver of change within the call centres. Their internal business learning and development teams are now accredited to run their own programmes with Red Talent acting as an independent QA.
The Problem
Having carried out a strategic business review our Global Professional Services client wanted to move towards a more “sales focused” culture in order to drive revenue growth and profitability in an expanding market. The strategy was very clear but they did not have ability to translate this into operational execution. After consultation with Red Talent they asked for a diagnosis of their Senior Partners and Management team to identify those who were suited to driving revenue generation rather than delivery and how the business could support them in moving to high performance in the selling of complex services.
Our Response
Red Talent Consultants worked with their Board and Executive Team and undertook a specific sales performance diagnostic to unearth what behaviours and activities would achieve growth. We presented our recommendations of the 20% of solutions that would provide 80% of their immediate business requirements whilst planning for the longer term. The partners involved were leading consultants in their respective fields, so we focused on their individual performance and recommended interventions based on our Executive coaching model. This focused on their individual behaviours and those required in driving the performance of high powered teams servicing FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies.
The Solution
They have now identified the Business leaders they want to drive growth in the business. We are providing them with a personal development plan based on Executive Coaching methodology that is taking them to levels of high performance that they did not believe could be achieved. Over the past six months new business has grown by 28% and the tempo is increasing. Our coaches remain in place and are now planning for support to succession planning and potential M&A activity.