The Situation
DY Strategy Consulting (DY) has turned conventional strategy thinking on its head by applying a single ‘one page of truth’ approach that’s achieving impressive results for leading business organisations in New Zealand. The logic is simple. By mapping the strategy onto one page, DY gives a business total clarity over its goals, processes, performance and people. No client should make an investment in strategy if it isn’t easy to execute. It’s a paradox that making things simple can be a hard thing to do. Not so in the DY consulting space.
DY doesn’t deliver strategy and consulting services in a vacuum; they specialise in “making strategy happen” by leaving an organisation with the capability to own and drive their strategy. To date, the technology underpinning DY’s One Page Strategy Map has been an Excel-based tool that manages business strategy, planning and reporting. Its functionality was limited; it required considerable manual processing and was increasingly fragile in large-scale situations. No scalability and no capability to move into the web environment meant a total technology re-think was in order.
“Clients were saying, ‘We love your approach - we want to get onboard with this way of thinking,’ but we found our Excel tool was undermining the entire delivery of our concept.” Nic Dalton, Director, DY Strategy Consulting.
The Pain
Faced with an unscalable and fragile business-critical tool, DY Consulting required a reliable and secure online tool for strategic goal setting, evaluation, planning and reporting. The proposed EmbedOnline™ tool would further differentiate the DY brand in the strategy consulting space.
Nic Dalton saw a good alignment between Intergen and DY’s approach to working. “Intergen impressed with their reputation for coming up with specific solutions for people. They’re not a one-size fits all type of operation; that’s what makes them different. There’s a lot of brainpower at Intergen. We had confidence that they could deliver an online tool that would turn complexity into simplicity, and Intergen knew immediately where to take us with Microsoft SharePoint technology.”
EmbedOnline™ keeps your strategy on track.
“If you don’t objectively measure and report on your strategy, it’s like writing your goals down on sand.” Dr Robert S. Kaplan, Harvard Business School.
EmbedOnline™ is an online business strategy, planning and reporting tool that is the critical action step in DY’s four-step framework: Unify – Map – Align – Embed. As a web-based tool available 24/7, EmbedOnline™ fits perfectly into a client environment. Using Microsoft SharePoint technology, it has significant familiarity in government organisations and the business community.
Its power is its versatility, being easily customised or scaled to specific customer requirements. EmbedOnline™ is easy to use, reliable and security is assured. A report can be completed in as little as 30 minutes and a visual traffic light indicator is a clever alert, highlighting significant issues. By taking the hassle out of reporting, an organisation gets a clearer view of ‘the truth.’ They can get answers to questions like: How good is our recoverability rate? Are we on time and on budget? Are we fully equipped to meet customer expectations?”
Partner becomes client.
Can a growing company be “too busy being busy”? “Absolutely,” says Tony Stewart, Intergen’s Managing Director. “Working with DY gave us the opportunity to turn the mirror on ourselves and make a decision to make smarter investments in our own strategy. Other consultants will facilitate workshops and leave you with a weighty strategy document that is invariably too complex to act upon, whereas DY leaves you with an ongoing practical tool that makes measuring and assessing targets and performance straightforward. It’s simple, practical and actionable, and it facilitates good business decisions,” Tony concludes.
The Gain
EmbedOnline™ has created an even bigger point of difference for DY Strategy Consulting. As a versatile, scalable and easy to use tool, EmbedOnline™ keeps strategy on track, in sight and easily managed by client organisations that stand to make measurable business gains through its use.