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Capabilities are an intertwined mix of all the resources available at a company for the efficient execution of work.  In today's business environment, organizational, informational, managerial, process and technological capabilities are often as important as a company's financial capability.  The importance of capabilities was highlighted in the 1990s when research showed that some companies consistently outperformed others despite having similar strategies, market positions, value propositions and pricing.  Those leading companies were found to have superior capabilities that allowed them to perfect the execution of their strategies.

If strategy is often compared to the directional setting of a company, capability is the readiness of the company to navigate the path set by its strategy.  Strategies that are far separated from a company's capabilities are destined to fail.  Think of asking someone who has not exercised in many years to run a marathon the next day!  Often organizations fail by jumping directly from strategy to execution without determining whether they have all the necessary capabilities for successfully executing their strategies.

Unfortunately, organizational, informational, managerial, process and technological capabilities are not easily acquired.  Research has shown that capabilities cannot be simply bought.  Companies often mistake buying a software program, for example, to having technological or process capabilities.  Establishing new organizational capabilities involves change and transformation.  The processes necessary for transformation and change are difficult, time-consuming and prone to failure.  However, when true transformation is achieved, and the resulting change is successfully implemented, it generally leads to a long-term, lasting impact on the organization.

We have designed several service lines for focused capability development.  Although specific solutions may differ in terms of the type of organization and industry in which they are implemented, they all share several themes:
 

  • Process: does the client have the right processes in place?

  • Organization: are the people organized in a manner to facilitate and support the execution of key processes?

  • Systems: are there technologies deployed to support the organization in executing their processes?

  • Performance: are there performance measurements in place to align the organization to its strategic objectives

  • Culture: last but not least, are we cultivating the culture most appropriate for our strategic ambitions?


We take all these items into consideration when we work with clients in designing and implementing transformation programs and capability development programs.

Some examples of our capability development service lines and their focus include:
 

  • Process Design and Improvement

    • How can we do things more efficiently?

    • How can we standardize what we do?

    • How can we streamline our work?

    • How can we avoid reinventing the wheel every time?

    • How can capture and share/transfer process knowledge?

  • Organizational Structure and Governance

    • Do we have the right organization for our business?

    • Should we run our operations from one office or multiple?

    • Should we outsource some of our non-core work or do everything in house?

  • Portfolio Planning and Management

    • Do we have the right resources and means (people, funds, processes, systems, etc.) to execute our portfolio?

    • How are we prioritizing projects/initiatives into our portfolio?

    • Do we have a centralized Portfolio Management Office (PMO) to streamline our portfolio planning and execution?

  • Project Management

    • Do we have the right checks and balances and controls to ensure our projects are proactively managed?

    • Do we have the right process and systems to forecast our resources and cash accurately?

    • How should we setup our project to avoid major issues down-the-road and achieve successful completion?

    • How can we measure our capability and readiness to undertake and execute projects?

  • Change Management

    • How do we design and implement a program to enhance our organizational capability?

    • How do we increase the odds that new capabilities stick with the organization?

    • How do we reduce risk of failure for major organizational change?

    • How do we improve our capability in the most efficient and expedient way?

  • Lean Operations

    • How can we reduce variability in construction operations?

    • How can we become Lean Constructors?

    • How can we have our organization continuously seek improvement opportunities?

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