Managing change at Coopers

Changing your internal approach to meet external demand is more difficult within a consultancy than in a client firm. According to Vic Luck, managing partner of Coopers & Lybrand Management Consulting in the UK, “achieving change in a consultancy practice is a difficult thing to do because everyone knows the answer, and everyone is an expert in change management. It is like making a chair and trying to sell it to a furniture maker, so when you come forward with an approach it is going to be picked over”.

Coopers thinks it makes a difference. So how has it made the change from strategic advisor to global implementor? And has its programme of culture change, “Making A Real Difference” (MARD), changed the firm’s approach to business and the lives of its staff?

“There are two ways we’ve been doing business change,” says Luck, “first by enhancing our network internationally; one move saw me become chairman of Coopers & Lybrand’s international practices. And the second was to make the climate and culture a more open, more communicative, collaborative place; to check that we do a regular business attitude survey.”

Luck has been working with Coopers since 1977, when he was based at the firm’s Iranian practice. He has been running Coopers’ consultancy practice in the UK since 1993. A year later the firm’s change programme was initiated.

“One of the benefits I’ve gained personally is improving my knowledge of strategic change programmes; that is an area in which I give most of my consultancy advice,” says Luck.

He is proud of the firm’s four culture change processes and believes that it has closed the gap between where it was in Autumn 1994 and where it envisaged it would be today: top of the poll.

And, if a 1996 Mori poll of the FT 500 Captains of British Industry is anything to go by, then Coopers has succeeded. Luck says: “Coopers is now the best-known consultancy and considered to be close to being one of the best in terms of reputation,” by three-quarters of the FT blue-chip firms. “In a poll in 1992 only 50 per cent of chief executives voted Coopers as the best-known consultancy, but what is amazing is the increase to 78 per cent in November 1996.”

Luck attributes this to the group working on clients and services, which has focused on shifting Coopers’ position from a strategic consultancy to a global provider; a cure – all for a select number of clients’ ills.

In terms of becoming a global implementor, Coopers is breaking into new markets by focusing on a three-pronged approach-strategy, process re-engineering and systems implementation. It also set up the Global Government Network Group at the end of 1995.

“We want to be recognised by the leaders of the world’s top international and national organisations as the people who make a real difference to their value as a business, that is why having a strategy, process re-engineering and a systems implementation capability is so important to us,” says Luck.

In February this year the firm landed a 10-year outsourcing deal with the BBC. With information technology services firm EDS, Coopers has set up Media Accounting Services, a joint venture company, through which they will manage the BBC’s finance function, streamline its finances and business systems. Together, the firms aim to create a single shared financial system and provide the BBC with a standardised service.

Luck says: “It demonstrates the growing trend in consultancy towards outsourcing and Coopers’ ability to both link up with other major consultancies and integrate several organisations to provide global solutions.”

He adds: “We are taking on more assignments where we stay with the client from strategy to implementation, and we are undertaking more work in systems implementation, technology-based outsourcing work, like the BBC project.”

Since May 1996 Coopers has also been managing a new five-year #110m financial management programme for the Ministry of Defence. It is heading a consortia of nine companies, which includes Deloitte & Touche, Logica and Racal Electronics. Not only will the consortia be managing the transfer of the MoD’s business processes, it will also be rolling out its accountancy system worldwide.

Over the last two years the strategy/implementation work balance has shifted throughout the organisation. Richard Jones, partner in Coopers’ world-class finance practice, who is working closely on the MoD project, says: “In the past our performance would have been measured by our portfolio of best names, now performance is judged on our ability to sustain our presence with a very large client like the MoD and really make a difference.”

Lynton Barker, chairman of Coopers & Lybrand’s public-sector consultancy agrees: “Three years ago 50 per cent of our consultancy work was classified as strategy, now only 15 per cent is strategy; we’ve moved our public-sector consultancy more into the operations and technology arena.”

By repositioning itself as a global systems implementor its skills – needs have changed. “As business has changed, so has the type of people recruited,” says Barker. “Partner resource was dominated by strategic analysis, now it is dominated by people who can redesign and implement systems.”

Besides changing its consultants’ skills-base the firm has also reviewed the quality mix of people it employs. Luck points out: “We used to have some stars and then the rest, and the stars were in demand and the rest weren’t. You can’t run an effective business practice if you have two different qualities, so now all our people are in the A-team.”

Despite an average number of 30,000 people applying each year, finding the right quality of consultant is like looking for a needle in a haystack – only 400 get through the firm’s three-day assessment course and half of those are taken on. The 200 taken on are the equivalent to those who leave each year.

This is all part of a move to ensure total quality mentality and top quality performance throughout the firm, an intrinsic part of its metamorphosis.

Luck’s emphasis is on moderate growth of around 15 per cent a year.

“Our task is to continue to push up the quality of clients and the people we employ,” he says.

So Coopers is not out to grow its consultancy through acquisition or additional recruits, if it means prejudicing quality, which Luck believes is likely to happen if the firm mixes cultures.

In spite of this, he will be recruiting partners from outside the organisation.

“We have taken some direct-entry partners from our competitors because we felt we didn’t have people ready to jump the hurdle of the partner grades and we don’t want to prejudice quality on promotion,” he says.

To this end the firm has introduced its 10 out of 10 grading programme to ensure that its clients are happy with the firm’s quality of work, and so its consultants benefit in terms of personal development. “10 out of 10 is a relentless drive to always increase the quality of work we do for clients, but we want our staff to get something out of it too, so each job gets analysed in terms of a post-engagement review,” he says.

Barker, who is also responsible for ensuring that consultants have decent property and technical support services, finds the firm barely recognisable since its infrastructure change. He says that three years ago the main complaints from staff were that there was not enough space, not the right technology, nor sufficient support staff.

Today the firm works on the basis of having the “right space”, meaning that if consultants need certain technology, or space to work in then they have a choice: from quiet rooms with no phones, to large open space offices and team rooms. Nobody has their own office, but is “hotelled” around the building.

The practice of hotelling means staff keep their belongings in a box while they are working at a client’s office. When they need to use any Coopers’ building their office space is set up exactly as if they had been using it each day. The new service centres also offer more efficient and effective support for consultants. Although the ratio of staff support to consultants has gone from 1:2.9 to 1:5, Barker says this is still more effective than it was before.

“We have reduced space by 30 per cent, that’s #5m off bottom-line costs every year. Although it was an unpopular move at the time, in a recent staff attitude survey, staff gave hotelling an 83 per cent satisfaction rating, so that has been one of our success stories,” says Barker.

Costs are down, floor space has been reconfigured and everyone is mobile.

“There is a one-on-one technology programme and every consultant gets a computer and laptop. We commit ourselves to giving a significant review of support services,” says Barker.

Training is also being aligned globally, so that each country comes in-line with the firm’s overall strategy. Staff will not only get training in their professional disciplines and generic skills, which include skills presentation, communication, influencing and team-working skills, but also in stress management.

“We need to pay particular attention to stress management where people are facing more demands in the marketplace,” says Luck. “The stress management course has been piloted on a selective basis, but it has been invaluable, and partners say this is the best course they do.”

Staff development, training and rewards are all part of MARD’s third change area, which aims to make Coopers & Lybrand “employer of choice”.

“You do get a feeling that the place has better team-work, no fiefdoms or “stay out of my patch” attitudes. There is more movement between market focusing groups and less angst than there used to be,” says Richard Jones, partner specialising in world-class finance. “A number of years ago staff would say ‘I’m fed up with this partner’ and would move to someone else.

Now we discuss it in a more positive way. We make a point of looking around the firm for people with the right skill-set and the person is taken more into account. There is more of a human feel about it.”

The fourth leg of the firm’s culture change programme is called the collaborative organisation. It ensures more communication within the firm, not only through Lotus Notes, which has been rolled out worldwide, but also through the firm’s knowledge sharing application Ike (information and knowledge exchange).

However, Ike is currently only UK-based: although used by UK consultants worldwide, it has not been rolled out globally. Luck expects it to be completed in the next two years.

The staff business attitude survey, a benchmark against which it measures its success, ensures more open communication, allows staff to vent their dissatisfaction and allows management to deal with any problems at source.

Staff turnover is also used to measure Coopers’ improved performance.

Three years ago staff turnover was around 25 per cent but today has dropped to 15.5 per cent. Luck wants to keep it in the 15 to 18 per cent bracket.

He is pleased that 95 per cent of staff who leave do not go to competitors but back into industry, taking with them enhanced skills and knowledge, and so fulfilling the firm’s socio-economic strategy.

“Making A Real Difference will help our role in business by making an impact on our clients’ businesses,” says Luck. “One of our socio-economic purposes is to enhance the quality of management decision making for clients and in the economy overall, that is our main function in the value chain.”