Organisation Design

A user-friendly platform that provides a digital version of Q5’s Metro Map methodology.

The platform not only provides you with a step-by-step guide to organisation design, but also interactive content, including animated videos, persona-driven scenarios, downloadable templates, and much more to support you on your OD journey.

Find out more about MetroMap+ here.

At Q5, we know that a customer-centric organisation does not just happen by accident; it requires changing governance and decision-making, behaviours and ways of working, roles and accountabilities, as well as performance measures. (Find out more about our Organisational Health Analytics here.)

In other words, we take a whole system approach, working collaboratively with our clients, to design the future customer-focused organisation.

We approach design through the customers’ eyes – mapping the customer journey to identify the moments that matter and the current pain points. This ensures that we design deliberately in service to the customer, noting this applies into internal teams as well.

We often support clients who experience or are seeking rapid regional and global growth, scrambling to meet customer demand at the expense of building a scalable and cost-effective operating model.  

Our approach for rapid growth starts with an understanding of your customers, business model and ultimately, what has led to success to date. Design approaches in this context often prioritise consistency and segmentation of service levels, process and governance. 

Beyond the usual fact base required for new market entry, our organisation design methods hones in on three critical dimensions; purpose of the new entity, interaction with the ‘core’ and of course your teams; what capability is required and how can they grow.

As an organisation evolves, we understand the cost base has to evolve in lockstep. On occasion, cost reduction may be required e.g. to meet short-term targets or to unlock future value through freeing up capacity to invest.

At Q5, we know cost optimisation is complex and nuanced. We understand these complexities and always approach programmes of this nature with four key principles in mind:

• A well-defined and validated financial baseline is fundamental to forming a strong foundation from which to assess the opportunity.

• Whilst cost reduction may be a focus, revenue growth opportunities should be considered at the same time. Therefore, understanding the relationship between cost and revenue is critical.

• Savings must be implementable and sustainable. Our approach is therefore designed to avoid cost ‘creep-back’ and having to repeat the exercise in the short-medium term.

• Leadership commitment and alignment is a critical factor in determining the programme’s success.

Find our more about sustainable cost optimisation at Q5 here.

Q5 works with organisations to develop the optimal design that ensures the merged entities are best aligned to deliver on the acquisition strategy and objectives – not just in respect to structures and process, but also with regards to culture and ways of working, which are often very different across the merged entities.

We focus on providing a facilitated, supportive process that ensures client teams feel that they have taken an active part in shaping their future and understand their role in delivering it. We explicitly link the organisation design to the value creation goals and identify any key structural or cultural issues and work in partnership to resolve them.

In post-merger integration, we always ensure that the work progresses in a collaborative and inclusive way for both organisations experiencing the change, giving you and respective governing bodies confidence in the success of the future merged organisation not just theoretically, but practically too.

Find out more about Q5’s M&A work, here.

At Q5, we apply our extensive understanding of what makes organisations work, to agile methodologies and your business context, to create better design.

Our Agile transformation philosophy incorporates 5 key cycles of value, with clear outcomes that must be developed and iterated, with agility mindset and training at the heart. It’s not theory for us – we are hands-on, collaborative practitioners – whether operating at the Enterprise level or alongside you as Coaches.

Good design doesn’t finish with one project – we believe that delivering value in iterations will help instil a continuous improvement mindset and enable leadership teams to better unlock and fix issues in the future.