Group Level Strategy

What does this programme cover?
If you are a line manager or functional expert, overseeing a number of businesses, profit centres or operating units, you are likely to be facing tough challenges. It is hard to add value and easy to make things worse.

Group Level Strategy is a unique opportunity for you to rethink your role in creating value. Based on the ground-breaking research of Andrew Campbell and Michael Goold, the programme is about your job at its most visible: fundamental choices that affect business performance.

What will I learn?

• How to create value by influencing business units, promoting synergy and developing a collaborative culture
• How to avoid inappropriate interference, bureaucratic controls and misguided advice
• How to develop a group-level or functional strategy which improves performance and wins the respect of the operating units

Who’s it for?
You currently have a job (or are about to get a job) at corporate or division level in your organisation. Reporting to your level are decentralised operating units or a matrix structure. You may be the line manager responsible or you may be in a group function. You are likely to be unsure how much to influence or direct the operating units; and, even if you know what influence you want to have, you may be unsure how best to win the support of the operating units to your plans.

How will my business benefit?

• You will decide which of your activities create the most value for your company.
• You will know how to link them to the corporate strategy.
• You will have a plan of how you will work with the operating units to achieve your objectives.

What does this programme cover?
If you are a line manager or functional expert, overseeing a number of businesses, profit centres or operating units, you are likely to be facing tough challenges. It is hard to add value and easy to make things worse.

Group Level Strategy is a unique opportunity for you to rethink your role in creating value. Based on the ground-breaking research of Andrew Campbell and Michael Goold, the programme is about your job at its most visible: fundamental choices that affect business performance.

What will I learn?

• How to create value by influencing business units, promoting synergy and developing a collaborative culture
• How to avoid inappropriate interference, bureaucratic controls and misguided advice
• How to develop a group-level or functional strategy which improves performance and wins the respect of the operating units

Who’s it for?
You currently have a job (or are about to get a job) at corporate or division level in your organisation. Reporting to your level are decentralised operating units or a matrix structure. You may be the line manager responsible or you may be in a group function. You are likely to be unsure how much to influence or direct the operating units; and, even if you know what influence you want to have, you may be unsure how best to win the support of the operating units to your plans.

How will my business benefit?

• You will decide which of your activities create the most value for your company.
• You will know how to link them to the corporate strategy.
• You will have a plan of how you will work with the operating units to achieve your objectives.

Preparation and Follow Up
Participants will be expected to read articles and prepare cases before the programme. Afterwards, participants are entitled to a half day of personal coaching from any member
of the programme faculty.

Benefits and Content
Participants will develop a new perspective about their companies and their personal role in the organisation. They will also learn new skills to improve their effectiveness.
• the difference between successful and less successful groups
• the main sources of group-wide value creation and how to apply them
• the main sources of group-wide value destruction and how to avoid them
• how to develop and assess the strategy
for a group of businesses
• how to assess growth options
• how to develop and assess the strategy for a group function
• how to design an organisation structure that supports the strategy

During the programme, participants will be asked to prepare and share a “persona value proposition”, explaining how they or their departments will contribute to the success of the group. This exercise ensures that the messages of the programme are integrated into each participant’s personal agenda.

Timetable

Monday
How group levels create value

09.00 : Introduction
09.30 : Successful groups
11.15 : Cases - Travis Perkins, Virgin, GE
14.00 : Sharing participant roles and issues
16.00 : Understanding the needs of operating units
Evening :Prepare portfolio exercise

Tuesday
Creating value with portfolio choices

09.00 : Portfolio issues: do we have the right businesses?
11.00 : Portfolio display and growth exercises
14.00 : Grand Met case
15.30 : Private Equity
Evening :External speaker

Wednesday
Creating value from synergy and organisation design

09.00 : Designing corporate structures: the rules
10.00 : Group work on corporate functional design
11.30 : The nine tests of good design
14.00 : Why value from synergy is hard to get
15.00 : Personal value propositions
17.30 : End of programme