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Strategy, excellence, governance and portfolio — unified in one office.
Case study · Consulting · Transformation office
One office, reporting to the chief executive, to run the transformation.
A mobile and fibre operator in the Gulf had strategy, process, governance and project management scattered across functions that did not coordinate. We designed and stood up a strategy and transformation office reporting to the chief executive, staffed it with our consultants alongside the client's people, and ran its first-year agenda.
The origin story
The office the other programmes came from.The process-excellence and customer-excellence programmes on these pages ran from this office, or from functions it created.
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Pillars, each with a lead function and the others in support.
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Stage gates from idea to termination, with governance and a responsibility matrix.
CEO
One office under the chief executive, one dashboard the group shareholder reads.
The brief
Strategy was reactive. Processes were ad hoc. Projects fought for the same people.
The company had grown as a set of functions — commercial, technical, marketing, finance, operations. Governance and reporting to the group shareholder were handled wherever they landed, and there was no portfolio view. The chief executive wanted the support functions that shape a company unified under one office with one mandate. As we wrote it with the leadership: lead the company through a deep transformation of its operations and position it as a top-tier operator — by developing and executing a strategic plan, improving the customer experience, driving operational efficiency, and ensuring compliance with regulation, industry standards and internal policy.
What we built
four functions, one officeCorporate strategy
Sets the corporate objectives, defines the mid- and long-term programme roadmap and its budget needs, and monitors achievement.
Corporate excellence
A centre of excellence built on three commitments — customer advocate, compliance, churn reduction — giving top management unbiased, data-driven facts and owning internal process development. It later split into customer, operations and business excellence as the workload grew.
Governance, risk and compliance
Corporate governance, compliance with audit mandates, and ownership of the risk and business-continuity frameworks.
Enterprise PMO
Initiates and monitors the portfolio of large and complex projects, and runs corporate scorecard monitoring.
Before the office was staffed, every objective was tied to its business impact — revenue, cost, customer experience, churn, adaptability and visibility, objective by objective — in a benefits case the board could read. A brand and public-relations function was planned for the office's third year.
The road to maturity
a year per stage, quarters beneathFour stages, not a big bang.
01 · Set-upUnify under one executiveThe chief executive's support functions brought into one office
02 · Roll-outBuild while runningCorporate operating model designed, functions built, strategy still reactive
03 · Process-orientedStandardise and measureStandardised processes, KPI monitoring, an optimised project portfolio
04 · Strategic alignmentProactive, accountableA proactive corporate roadmap and an accountability culture embedded
The first-year agenda
Five pillars, one navigation dashboard.
01 Strategy and performance
Strategic pillars agreed with top management and the group; a corporate balanced scorecard as the navigation dashboard; a programme of the top ten initiatives — and a performance model that cascades the scorecard to every employee.
02 Business processes
The missing customer-to-customer processes designed at level 3 and orchestrated with the systems; procurement re-engineered to shorten time-to-business; and a product-lifecycle framework with seven stage gates from idea to termination. The process work in full →
03 Governance and reporting
A governance model at corporate level, steering committees and performance reviews, and a corporate dashboard inside the monthly business review that satisfies the group's reporting demand.
04 Digital-transformation governance
For the company's largest transformation programme: strategic phases and release scope, steering and decision rights, tracking and risk management, organisational change — and operational readiness validated through business simulation and friendly-user trials before each release.
05 Customer excellence
The programme that fixed the main customer pain points across the lifecycle — three workstreams, a chief-executive-chaired steering committee, and a measurement centre as the single source for programme KPIs. From pain points to a permanent department →
What came out of it
The office is the origin of the work on these pages: the process-excellence programme, the customer-excellence programme and its successor department, the CX strategy and the commercial propositions all ran from it or from functions it created. What it delivered first was the structure: one operating model, one scorecard, one portfolio, one governance chain — and a centre of excellence with the standing to tell top management what the data says about its customers.
What the client gets
One office, one mandate
The chief executive's support functions unified, with a written mandate and a benefits case.
Strategy that reaches everyone
A corporate strategy process, a balanced scorecard, and a performance model weighted to every employee.
Frameworks where there were none
Process, governance, risk and compliance — plus a portfolio with one steering structure and one reporting line to the shareholder.
A hand-over by design
Consultants embedded in the office who hand over to the client's own people as each function matures.
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Transformation without an office to run it?
We design, set up and staff strategy and transformation offices for operators and service businesses in GCC — and we run the programmes underneath them.