A change in strategic direction - designing culture to Pivot
the client
Paywizard has been helping TV brands around the world to manage their customer relationships and unlock subscriber intelligence for over 20 years and includes a customer base of well-known brands such as ITV, BT, Virgin Media, Freeview and Sony. A founder-led business, it is based in Scotland with sales and development offices in London, Singapore and Manila.
They had taken the decision to capitalise on technology and market advances, in the process changing its focus from business process outsourcing (BPO) towards the provision of a subscription, billing and CRM platform for pay-TV service providers. At the same time the introduction of new board members added a fresh impetus to a strategy of international expansion, taking its world-class customisable platform to a new audience.
the desired outcome
The new strategy resulted in a reduction in headcount, leaving 200 staff working out of two main offices. Whilst the residual employee base was loyal to the business, any shift of employee numbers, whether from restructuring or merger, inevitably results in a degree of uncertainty and tension. Paywizard wanted CC to design a new culture that fitted their new proposition and engage their people in the process.
the objectives
Paywizard identified a need to refresh the company’s culture in order to ensure that it would support the strategic international growth of the business, including the shift from service operation to solutions provider. Key to success was the ability to capitalise on the existing Paywizard strengths, including the expertise of its employees, many of which had been with the company for over ten years. So they asked CC to:
- Develop a new mission, vision and values for the organisation
- Develop a behavioural competency framework which made it simple and effective for everyone to apply the values to their day to day roles
- To fully engage their people in the process
- To embed the new culture across the organisation
the approach
insight
The first step was to conduct our CC culture assessment building on the initial exploratory work carried out by the executive team. This enabled us to develop an appreciation of the existing culture’s strengths and weaknesses and the way in which it could be used as a basis for supporting the new strategy.
The insight gained from this exercise allowed us to conduct a 2 day workshop with the Executive Team on not only on setting the new Mission, Vision and Values but also on articulating ‘the case for change’, agreeing the change priorities and developing an understanding of the behaviours that would support the new culture going forward.
design
Together with the Executive team, we designed a new articulation of their Mission, Vision and Values ensuring that all staff and other internal stakeholder groups, across the business were included and engaged in the final design.
Once the values were developed, we creating a working group from across the organisation and led them through a series of workshops to develop a behavioural competency framework
embed
We worked alongside the Managers to help them develop a robust implementation plan to roll out the new culture. Working alongside the Managers in this way, enabled them to not only build their understanding of the new culture but also create a strategic roadmap which would ensure that the culture was fully embedded as well as accelerate the delivery of new ways of working across the organisation. The workshop resulted in the creation of five activity work streams which have enabled managers to take responsibility for leading the culture change implementation.
results
The Paywizard executive team were able to build on the existing strengths within the organisation’s culture in order to develop a robust set of mission, vision and values which would enable delivery of the new strategy. By drawing the management team into the development and delivery phase, managers were engaged with the new culture framework, which moved ownership beyond the executive team to managers now leading the embedding.
testimonial
“Culture Consultancy have been fabulous experts, guides, facilitators and challengers in enabling us to design the future culture we need to support delivery of our strategic plans, particularly as we continue to transition our company internationally. Quentin has worked extremely well with our executive team, ensuring we define something truly meaningful and practical to guide the business and our people – a set of Mission, Vision and Values that people are really engaging with.
We truly value the difference culture experts make to the quality and value of the outcomes, particularly individuals who understand the commercial intricacies of business. We’ve been delighted with the approach, the way people have been engaged and that we now have a team of managers taking ownership for driving forward and embedding the newly defined culture. The support we have received from Culture Consultancy has been great and we are continuing to tap into their expertise as we continue our culture change journey.”
Moira Brown, Senior Vice President – HR, Corporate Communications & Change Management, Paywizard Group plc
Find out more about how we can help you with the human side of business change, here.
