Intentional Growth Programme
Sometimes the growth and achievement of strategy can feel like a series of initiatives-of-the-month. To make it take root, you need to apply intentionality to what and how you execute.
This year-long engagement focusses on building foundations and capability to make strategy happen. From vision and values, through leadership, strategy, execution, people development, ops, delivery and continuous improvement we build a foundation to sustainably deliver growth and strategy.
During these 12 months, although our focus has been mostly on capability and execution, each business we've worked with so far has significantly grown at least 2 of team, sales, revenue and profitability - on occasion all 4. They've also made their values more real, and most importantly, developed more control of their direction.
What does the engagement look like?
Although each engagement is customised depending on your particular organisation's strengths, weaknesses and culture, the engagement will typically take 4 phases.
- Diagnostic. Through discussions, workshops, review of existing documentation and systems, we'll review the key areas of your business. This will typically take 3 to 5 days over a fortnight. We'll come up with a prioritised set of areas based on your particular circumstances which will guide us through the year.
- Build. The key factor for making strategy happen is to have a consistent and disciplined execution machine. Our second phase, typically for around 3 months, works with you to put this in place, using an approach based on Agile techniques. We will agree with you a key theme for the quarter based on findings from the diagnostic, and start the execution process with you.
- Momentum and handover. During this phase, which is also usually 3 months, we'll work with your leadership team to enable them to take over running the strategic execution. We will have worked together to identify a scaling theme for this quarter. If not yet addressed, we would likely also be looking at implementing a continuous improvement programme by now.
- Advisory. During the last 6 months, the engagement will turn largely advisory, with occasional engagement during the regular strategic execution meetings, and engagement, advice and mentoring across key business initiatives as needed.
Let's talk
If you'd like to see if our Intentional Growth Programme would be a fit for you and help you achieve your business goals, contact us and we'll get back in touch to discuss.
Iyas's bio and experience
Each implementation of our Intentional Growth Programme is led by Iyas, the founder of Beyond the Quarter.
Iyas co-founded a technology and business consultancy which, via acquisitions, turnaround, IPO and trade sale had him leading teams and companies from 2 people to 500, with revenues from £0 to high 8 figures. At one stage, they were ranked the 4th Full Service Agency in Europe by Forrester.
He returned to the dynamic world of entrepreneurs, supporting CEOs and their leadership teams develop and make their strategy a reality. For some, that has meant doubling the business. Others, turning profitable, or dramatically improving margin. Sometimes to exit at unexpectedly high multiples.
Always with values at the core, and humour along the way. If you want a little more detail, grab a coffee...
- Co-founded a Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse consultancy;
- Grew it to 30+ consultants;
- Primarily blue-chip client base such as Lloyds, Mothercare, Debenhams and Yell.
- Merged into a larger Business and Technology consultancy, in which I took a shareholding stake.
- Took on a board role in merged consultancy to develop our Intellectual Capital;
- Created communities of practice and community days, which were responsible for significant increases in knowledge sharing and capability development.
- As part owner and board director, took over a team of 60 consultants, our largest, in a turnaround scenario;
- Leading with a set of principles focussed on developing our team to become world class, I put in place a structure and practices that reduced consultant churn (i.e. the % leaving us every year) from a disastrous 40% to an industry leading 6%;
- Grew the practice to over 200 consultants, started a practice in India, recruited a support team, recruited a recruiter to overhaul recruitment (too many 'recruits' in that sentence?);
- Made us a destination employer so we no longer needed any external recruitment while we grew from 60 to over 200 consultants, and saving well over £1 million in recruitment fees;
- Created an environment where we achieved recognition (ranked 4th Full Services Agency in Europe by Forrester), challenged and grew the best consultants, and (nearly) all enjoyed the ride;
- Created a children's charity alongside, and aligned our consultancy's fundraising efforts to it with fun events put on by our operations team.
- Board member and part owner when we were acquired for £42 Million ($84 Million at the time) to kick-start a consulting practice across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
- Took on the entire EMEA consulting team of nearly 500 ranging from UK to South Africa, Spain to the Middle East;
- Grew and started practices in new territories;
- Left after 3 years to go back to independent companies where I believed the values were more aligned with my own beliefs.
- Founded Beyond the Quarter to work with independent companies looking to grow in a way that is aligned with the founders' values. Using growth and values to reinforce each other, rather than in opposition.
- Resumed directly supporting consultancies and agencies, the businesses that are closest to my heart and experience.