Spectrum Strategies can help answer the basic question “Is there really a PROBLEM?” by examining indicators of organizational health, for example:

• Financial performance
• Customer awareness and satisfaction
• Productivity, quality and innovation trends
• Availability of leadership and technical skills, and associated development paths
• Quality of internal communications and coordination
• Existence of meaningful operating policies and procedures
• The existence of a regular business evaluation and planning process
• The extent and suitability of information technology support

Often the identification of problems and opportunities can best be done by comparison with others in the marketplace. Spectrum Strategies can provide an analysis of existing benchmark databases or use its depth of contacts in the real estate and facilities marketplace to collect original data.

Strategy is tough when your organization does not have a clear and agreed-upon direction. Our experience has been, not that organizations lack direction per se, but that many organizations’ leaders don’t share a common vision. We have helped many facilities and real estate organizations achieve consensus and clarity with respect to the strategic direction of their business and the role they must play within the company they support. We can help you define your role and make you an integral player at the corporate strategy table.

Unlike sports, in business you rarely get to “practice”. A particular course of action results in real outcomes that affect your competitive standing and the viability of your organization. Spectrum Strategies approaches feasibility analyses and business plans as simulations of your business, giving you the chance to “practice” (at least on paper) a particular strategic initiative, or to test the differences among alternatives. In this way, the outcomes can be modeled and evaluated before you implement in reality, providing maximum chance of success.

Without process (aka “activity”), not much else matters. Process fabricates the goods and delivers the service, and we are experts are taking a systematic look at your work processes and wringing out waste and non-value-added steps. Process is what organizations and facilities are designed to enable and accommodate, so whether we are asked to develop a physical plan or an organizational chart, we look at process first.

A key concept in our approach to process improvement is Technology Integration, that is, the evaluation and/or creation and use of computerized tools to support your work processes. Too many times, businesses are forced to adapt their processes to the way their software works, resulting in inefficient or irrational work flow. We are strong advocates of a “process-as-driver-of-technology” approach, rather than the other way around. All of our consultants are technologically savvy enough to recognize opportunities for utilizing technology solutions to process problems.

This is listed after “Process Improvement” on purpose. Organization is more than titles and reporting relationships. Spectrum Strategies challenges clients to think beyond “silos” and examine the way work flows from one functional area to another, beginning with customer request and ending with customer satisfaction. The resulting design for your facilities and real estate organizations must facilitate cross-functional communications, and hand-offs in the workflow so that your customer-facing processes are speedy and efficient.

We hear it said all the time: “We just needed a fresh pair of eyes!” Spectrum Strategies provides fresh, unbiased and collaborative examinations of business issues for our clients, framing the issues, questioning assumptions, promoting communication across silos, identifying and resolving conflicts, and documenting decisions. We do this through structured group problem-solving as well as one-on-one executive coaching, as the situation warrants. Spectrum Strategies has facilitated discussions and vision development in a number of settings, large and small, in both the private and public sectors. In our facilitation sessions, our job is to make sure all points of view are heard. Sometimes conflicts can be resolved on the spot, while other times we simply become the conduit for escalating issues for handling by upper management. In either case, we strive to achieve clarity so that the differences that remain are clearly spelled out. We are skilled at forging consensus out of sometimes very divergent sets of opinions.

Changes in your organization’s physical environment may result from organizational restructuring, growth of the business, consolidation, moves to be near customers or suppliers, and any number of other reasons. The operational word here is “change” and most people don’t like doing that. To the extent changes in your facilities and real estate are noticeable by the people who work there, we can help you incorporate the principles of change management into your project. If your changes are being made to your facilities or corporate real estate organizations, we can help you build the acceptance and buy-in that helps insure success.

While the prevailing wisdom is to “measure what you manage”, we also believe you need to “manage what you measure”. Our approach to performance measurement focuses on what you really need to run your business and avoids accumulations of irrelevant statistics. Consistent with Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard concepts, we encourage measurement and tracking of performance variables from multiple perspectives (financial, customer, process and development). We also understand that presentation and communication is important, and we are adept at implementing performance databases and a number of reporting tools and formats.

We believe there are two approaches to outsourcing. Spectrum Strategies’ approach to outsourcing (Managed Outsourcing™) emphasizes the importance of defining the business or service to be outsourced before you go out on the street for bids. Alternatively, if the business you are trying to outsource is poorly defined, any solicitation you circulate in the marketplace will reflect that, leaving you open to uninformed proposals, and perhaps a provider that cannot do the job as promised.

In order to better define your service, it is necessary to take several steps before going out into the marketplace for competitive bids:

• Define your standard operating procedures (SOP’s), in terms of how your services will be provided, including especially the customer interface procedures such as service request and task or project close-out.
• Define expected levels of performance for each of your services, both in terms of the customer experience as well as internal measures related to efficiency, timing, financial results, etc. If these performance measures vary by service or by customer, make sure that is explicit in any documentation
• Establish explicit agreements with your own customers regarding the range of services to be delivered, using Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) or other similar mechanisms. This process has the advantage of defining who your customers are, where they are located, what services they require, and what / how are they going to pay for those services.

Once you have defined the business as described, you have the basis for the specifications that will make your solicitation biddable. RFP’s for outsourcing need to contain the information necessary to enable a prospective bidder to understand fully what is needed, in order to make a bid that they (and you!) will not later live to regret. In addition, a tightly specified RFP will ensure your ability to compare “apples and apples” when the proposals come in, easing your selection process.

As a result of looking systematically at your service – developing SOP’s, SLA’s and performance metrics, you may decide that you have gotten your service in sufficiently good order that you may keep it in-house after all. Managed Outsourcing™ = Win-Win!