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About Us Our work is collaborative, involving client personnel and resources and the transfer of skills to the client. Although 80% of our annual work is generally for existing clients, it consists of predominantly new project work. Our engagements are usually completed within one to six months. We work against specific objectives with clearly-established outcomes and timing, contributing to client business goals. Our experience and results indicate that improved performance requires investment in people, systems and support structures. However, that investment does not require additional resources, but rather the redeployment of talents, resources and energy already present. Our Philosophy Our approaches revolve around a simple idea: Improving the client's condition. One of the fundamentals of our success is to utilise the existing talents and resources of the organisation to enhance client satisfaction and their business goals, by directing talents and resources outward, not inward. What we do – a few examples Organizational Redesign For AIG in the UK, the problem was to merge three companies under one banner. We assisted them in identifying the best practices from all three companies and picking the best methods for adoption by the new all-embracing company. Re-engineering For a part of Barclays Bank plc, Barclays Financial Planning (a multi-tied sales-force) we identified incongruent areas and errors in their sales quality assurance department, part of their financial planning arm. Here we identified misapplied rules and inaccurate ratings applied to standards of advice and sales process. By re-engineering the process and additionally the reporting to the training and competence regime, we empowered the sales managers and provided them with the tools to manage their salespeople again. Systems Design For Standard Bank, a South African Investment Bank we analysed and interpreted the requirements under the Disclosure and Transparency Reporting and the Panel for Takeovers and Mergers to create a web based depositary from all the entities worldwide to provide the global position of all UK and dual listed securities. Following on from this work the system was then expanded and we advised the inclusion of all global equities with the application of the Research Department to be able to have up-to-date positions known so that they could declare any conflict of interest, a requirement by multi-jurisdictions around the world. Course Design As part of the brief for the Zurich Banking Group, an Operational Risk Framework had to be rolled out worldwide. The banking group spanned four jurisdictions and each had separate processes that need to be recorded, primary and secondary controls identified throughout and uploaded into the main risk database in specific formats. We coached and assisted the various process owners in the recording of the processes and facilitated further course design and application for the reporting tool that was required to collect and collate all losses, near misses and breaches. Sales and Marketing For the Access Bank UK Limited, a foreign sponsored bank applying for authorisation from the FSA, we designed their governance tools, provided a risk framework and identified all the necessary controls required in running a bank from AML solutions to ordering cheque books and destruction of confidential waste. We created and advised on all customer-facing documentation, co-ordinated and created a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan in conjunction with the relevant authorities and arranged personal safety briefings and contact points for the directors when they were travelling abroad. Strategy Formulation and Innovation For ICAP, a worldwide Inter-Dealer Broker we were faced with strategy setting involving defining a risk appetite and applying identified risks across the strategy for the next three years. Advising on strategy setting to an existing highly profitable organisation required a great amount of dexterity and understanding of the previous regime before we identified the way to enhance the existing strategy and provide links to the other areas of effective management. Retrospective TCF checks Working with another consultancy and Exeter Friendly Society, we reviewed previous years complaints to ensure that the decisions reached and the responses provided were clear and fair as well as congruent and consistent with the business decisions at the time. All this had to be checked against contemporary Treating Customers Fairly practice but applied retrospectively, ensuring that the customers had a fair deal and that no one was given a bad experience. Service and Quality With a small Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) requiring assessment and appraisal of his cases before submitting them to the providers for processing seemed a simple enough task. On further questioning and probing it was soon evident that there was a need for an overhaul of the sales process including documentation and delivery. In a matter of hours we provided template documents and phrases along with compliant training in fact finding and establishing MiFID standards throughout the sales process. The result was a compliant end to end process for clean submission to the provider and ensuring the whole customer journey was evidenced to a “Treating Customers Fairly” standard.
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About Us:
Our Mission Statement “We enter collaborative relationships where responsibility and accountability is shared, skills and knowledge are transferred and dependence on us is diminished until the point of disengagement”.
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