Changing the Game

The Playbook for Leading Business Transformation

Michael Vullings, Graham Christie

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780730389132
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780730389156
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

**Finalist of the Management and HR Book of the Year at the Australian Business Book Awards 2022**

The Complete and Comprehensive Guide to Business Transformation 

As digital technologies and consumer expectations continue to disrupt almost every industry sector, companies are placing greater emphasis on developing and implementing transformation programs. Changing the Game offers the practical knowledge required to create a dramatic step-change in company performance. Designed for executives and managers responsible for a transformation in any type of company and situation, this comprehensive real-world playbook covers the change process from start to finish — from assessing the situation and determining strategic priorities, to developing a roadmap, establishing the governance structure, managing initiative delivery, and evaluating the impact of the transformation.  

Adopting a robust and pragmatic approach to every stage of business transformation, this authoritative volume explains where to start, identifies key areas of focus, and describes the strategies, decisions, and actions necessary for achieving results. Throughout the text, case studies of leading organizations highlight essential tools and approaches, examine key challenges, and evaluate their impact. A wealth of practical tools help readers build a foundation for change in their organization, define a clear path forward, mobilize teams, assign responsibilities, execute initiatives, track progress, sustain momentum, and more.  

• Provides detailed guidance on envisioning, designing, managing, and delivering a successful company, function or team transformation 
• Enables readers to create a dramatic change in company performance with a results-focused approach based on leading management practices 
• Contains more than 20 in-depth sections representing the entire transformation journey 
• Includes numerous ready-to-use tools and templates, including 50 exhibits, that can be adopted in any organization to accelerate results 
• Features tips and advice from top-level executives at leading companies and government organizations 

Changing the Game: The Playbook for Leading Business Transformation is an invaluable step-by-step blueprint for executives, managers, teams, and consultants involved in devising and executing transformation programs. 

Take stock

A common first stage of a transformation is to assess the present condition of the company. The breadth and depth of a quick assessment will differ, but the objective remains the same: an initial point-of-view of the present strategic, operating and financial health of the company, including an overview of the challenges and opportunities, and drawing attention to any issues that require immediate attention.

A quick assessment or health check is typically initiated by top management or the Board to obtain an independent, objective, fact-based assessment of the situation. Use of external parties such as consultants or external advisers can assist in identifying issues, gathering data, conducting analysis, synthesising findings and providing recommendations. However, the assessment should draw on input from management and employees and will normally take the form of a formal report or presentation, prepared either independently or by a joint project team. High-level quantitative and qualitative analysis will examine the present strategy, financial health and operating condition of the company. For issues identified over the course of the assessment, it is important that the findings consider the severity, impact and timing of issues to determine what actions are needed.

A quick assessment should enable management to consider the following important questions:

1. Are any urgent actions required to ensure financial and operational stability? (This typically applies only to companies facing cash and liquidity issues.)
2. What are the key areas requiring management attention and focus? (This may apply to the whole company or specific business units.)
3. Should a transformation mandate be established or can issues and opportunities be managed through refocusing business-as-usual efforts?
4. Is capital available to fund changes or are short-term actions required to free up capital and create a funding pathway? (These might relate, for example, to revenue, operating margin and asset efficiency initiatives that have short-term impact.)

Assess current situation

For companies whose profitability or liquidity is an underlying concern, assessment of the current situation is primarily focused on financial issues to determine whether the company can and should be saved. Assessing the feasibility and likelihood of success for a financial turnaround considers three primary areas: (1) the viability of one or more core businesses, (2) adequate cash or access to bridging loans, and (3) whether organisational resources are available to drive performance improvements. In the most severe cases, the sale of the company to a strategic buyer or a controlled wind-down may be the best course of action. Otherwise a rapid and sustained focus on cash management may sustain the company in the short term while a more strategic response can be developed.

If the focus of the transformation is to realign the company for profitability, or build on existing success, a diagnostic should start with a broad assessment. This should involve looking at overall strategic, financial and operational performance across the company and assessing financial statement trends, financial metrics and ratios. More detail can be added by looking at individual business units to understand their relative performance and contribution to overall performance. More granular detail can be extracted by looking at operating performance trends and metrics within the business units or by examining specific regions, activities or products.

The output of a diagnostic should include concrete conclusions about which areas of the company require management attention and why, and outline a response plan. This plan should include a general identification of the issues and type of response required. It should identify and recommend any short-term actions that will, for example, capture ‘quick wins’ or address urgent operational or financial concerns. It should also identify an approach and key next steps to lay the groundwork for the development of a strategic response to fully address the challenges and opportunities faced by the company. For a step-by-step approach to undertaking a diagnostic, refer to Appendix I: Diagnosing company performance.

Ensure near-term funding

A transformation usually aims to be self-funding. Once the transformation is underway a portion of the cost savings and revenue generated by initiatives can be reinvested to fund further efforts. However, establishing a virtuous cycle often means that seed capital is needed at the outset to finance key roles and get activity underway. These funds are needed to create the mandate and drive the ‘quick wins’ that will lay a foundation and build traction so the transformation can progress to a stage where results will fuel ongoing delivery.

Early access to capital will be needed to drive rapid results. It is therefore important to focus on levers that can release funding quickly (typically 3 to 12 months). For financially healthy companies, an initial budget and organisational resources may be readily available. There may be cash reserves to draw on or budgets that can be reallocated. If a company is less healthy and facing a ‘cash squeeze’, some short-term actions may be necessary to get started (see figure 1.1, overleaf). Initiatives that are particularly effective at freeing up capital in the short term include:

• Sales — driving short-term sales with an intensified sales push, improved pricing and reduction in discounts
• Cost of goods sold — procurement efficiencies from improved sourcing strategies, including consolidation and re-tendering of major contracts
• Operating expenses — reduction of costs through a general or targeted cost-cutting program, including overheads, fixed costs and organisational efficiencies
• Capital investments — optimising capital expenditures ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 Take stock
• 2 Create the mandate
• 3 Map the journey
• 4 Mobilise
• 5 Execute and track
• APPENDIX I: DIAGNOSING COMPANY PERFORMANCE
• APPENDIX II: MONITORING AND IMPROVING CASH FLOWS
• APPENDIX III: DEFINING ASPIRATIONS IN A WORKSHOP
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• INDEX
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT