4 Pearls

Why would you choose to work with us? Simple. We have an unusual blend of sophisticated business skills, practical experience and creativity that will add value to those you have in your team.

And we take our role of ‘critical friend’ very seriously. It gives us the freedom to always give best advice, say what needs to be said and think and work differently.

When it can no longer be ‘business a usual’ isn’t that what you need!

Pearl 1) ‘Stakeholder Insights’ and ‘Perception Audits’

Taking the pulse of the business

All organisations have customers. Everyone in an organisation has a customer, either externally or internally, (even if they aren’t thought of as such.) Customers are just one of the many Stakeholder groups an organisation needs to be aware of and whose needs and expectations need to be taken into account. Each group offers different opportunities and challenges and need to be as considered in that light.

In a world of constant and disruptive change, being aware of how these needs shift and change becomes ever more important. To survive organisations need to be flexible, responsive and resilient. They need a clear and accurate understanding of how their business is perceived by key audiences, and how they’re performing. They need a clear sense of who they are and what the ‘value’ is that they can bring to the market.

This can only come from a deep understanding of the needs, motivations, aspirations, priorities and behaviours of all their ‘customers’ or stakeholder groups.

Insights from this knowledge allows our clients to create a long term, sustainable competitive edge. They can differentiate, they can design their business, products, services, customer proposition and communications around those insights and in so doing ensure they remain relevant, resilient and competitive.

The challenge is that often there is a mismatch between how people inside a business see their world and how others outside the business see it. When assumptions are interrogated it can become apparent that there is little common understanding or agreement on key questions. Lack of consistency manifests in the outside world as confused communication, poorly understood strategy and inconsistent and even damaging organisational behaviour.

Even internally, different groups can hold very different perspectives from each other. Senior management need to understand and manage the needs and expectations of all their key stakeholder groups, internal and external.

It is the mismatches in perceptions that are often at the heart of management failure. Poor quality information leads to bad decisions.

We see our role as to simplify the complex. We seek to understand these mismatches and the real needs of customers and provide clarity and focus. In so doing we can offer profound and surprising insights. This creates the opportunity for new ways of thinking and acting which can impact the entire organisation and the way it conducts business.

Perception and Communications Audits

To enable our clients to understand and manage these dynamics, we use Perception Audits.

We conduct candid, confidential, guided conversations, with a cross section of your stakeholders, internally and externally. The issues we explore can be very focused and specific or very broad. They become a dialogue. Creating the circumstances for an authentic conversation like this is a learnt skill.

We are interested in a holistic understanding of their business challenges, their expectations and experiences of interacting with your business, their experience of your products and services, your relationship with them and the threats and opportunities to your business in general.

Our client will have specific things they will want us to explore, but equally respondents are only rarely invited to take part in confidential conversations of this kind and due to the confidential nature of the interview, take the opportunity to raise issues, ideas and contributions of their own which they want communicated back up to the client.

Understanding the world from their point of view, what they really think about you and your business, can provide the critical difference between you being a business that is proactive and potentially disruptive and one that is potentially disrupted; constantly reacting to situations seemingly outside of your control.

Sometimes the conversations that follow an investigation of this kind can be difficult. It can be hard to hear what people really think. That's why we describe our approach as the ‘grit in the oyster.’ But that's the role of a ‘critical friend,’ telling you things as they are, rather than how you might wish them to be.

As previously highlighted, this is not traditional market research, but a dynamic, iterative, creative process, where we can test and develop ideas with your key stakeholder groups as well as gather unique insights into their concerns needs and experiences. They are a quick and powerful way for senior management to get ‘the pulse’ of the business and act as a powerful catalyst for change and signal of change, to all those involved .

We don’t just feedback information; we provide clear recommendations based on our insights and experience and thanks to our extensive network of trusted associates, we can help implement any recommendations too.

Pearl 2) Whole brained thinking - Integrating strategy and creativity

Traditionally businesses have mostly focused on managing the hard, rational, quantitative, ‘left brained’ skills to manage the business, with the emphasis on finance, technology and process. Clearly they are important.

However there is a growing realisation that in times of constant change and low productivity growth, there needs to be as much focus on the ‘softer qualitative aspects’ of the business; its people, reputation, culture, values, its communications, creativity, and its brand, to protect it and provide long term sustainable competitive advantage.

The effective management of these softer assets requires a very different set of skills to those traditionally employed.

It means bringing ‘right brained’ thinking, (the intuitive, the emotional and creative) into the very centre of the business to compliment and balance the ubiquitous ‘left brain’ (the logical, analytical and rational).

It means putting customers, (internal as well as eternal,) at the centre of your thinking. It means building products, services, communications, systems and processes, around their needs rather than the other way around.

It means opening up to new ideas and new ways of thinking, unlocking the creative potential of all those in the business, harnessing their hopes and aspirations to a common vision and a common set of shared values. Creating places where people want to come to work.

It means encouraging people to view their contribution and responsibility in the wider context of the business vision and mission, rather than in the narrower confines of their individual roles.

It means recognising the importance of your ‘brands,’ investing in them and making them work harder, and reflect your values, as part of a broader, integrated market positioning and communications strategy.

It means working ‘smarter’ and maximising the potential of all the communications channels available to you, (those ‘owned’ by the business and those that you pay for).

Integrating left and right-brained thinking underpins our whole approach.

We are a small group of highly experienced, multi disciplinary business consultants and creative thinkers, committed to the success of our clients through the transfer of experience, expertise and new thinking.

‘Competitive advantage does not come from the internet it comes from leveraging creativity.’

Professor Richard Scace

Pearl 3) Effective, integrated two-way communications

One of the most important attributes of a great leader is the ability to communicate. For a business, an effective two-way communications strategy that takes account of all key stakeholder groups and the changing nature of communications, is a similar necessity. 

An effective, communications programme is a dialogue, rather than a monologue, it’s consistent over time, integrated and disciplined, but most importantly, as highlighted earlier, is built upon a real understanding of your audiences and grounded in a common vision, clarity around the desired market positioning for the organisation and a clear set of ‘lived’ values.  

As your people become ever more important and the competition to attract and retain talent intensifies, a communications strategy can no longer be something only focused on external audiences. 

Similarly the groups that will determine the success or failure of your business strategy, nowadays base their decisions on more than just your products and services. Your values, behaviour and contribution to the broader society are just as much a part of your customer proposition as the products and services you sell.

We have a background in ‘customer insight’ having worked in leading International Advertising, Corporate Identity and Communications Consultancies. We have considerable experience working with senior management teams to develop their corporate visions and values, as well as managing and implementing complex communication and brand strategies.  

Pearl 4) Strategically-driven design

Good design is not just a judgement about aesthetics, whether you like something or not. It should be the communication of and consistent with a business strategy.

There is a role for subjectivity, but the evaluation of any creative work has to be far more rigorous than just that. Design is a management tool with very specific tasks top perform and need to be considered in that far more demanding and rigorous way.

Good design can bring a business strategy to life. It motivates and inspires, enables an organisation to stand out in a crowd and to differentiate itself in a world that is becoming increasingly commoditised.

We use proven methodologies and techniques for generating the most powerful design solutions. We are not limited to graphic design having relationships with highly experienced designers working across a range of design disciplines.

All our designers are highly talented and have worked in leading UK and international consultancies for clients with sophisticated design needs. However great design on its own is not enough if you can’t enrol an organisation to use them. Having the skill and experience to manage a design process through an organisation is just as critical and rarely acknowledged. We have these skills.