Optus, a leading telecommunications and technology provider in Australia, sought to optimise their Optus Business Centres to better support small to medium-sized enterprises with tailored business transformation solutions. The objective was to enhance their foundational operating model, ways of working, improve leadership and sales management, to ultimately elevate productivity, customer experience, and revenue.
The FDG Transformation team closely collaborated with Optus Business to pilot and implement innovative business transformation solutions. A critical success factor was to increase agility in response to customer needs and market changes, necessitating an examination of the current state first.
Understanding the current state: The first step involved assessing the current state of People, Culture, Operational, and Sales Processes within the Business Centres to identify areas for improvement. This included interviews with sales staff, data analysis, and pinpointing pain points in current workflows and processes.
Developing a New Operating Model: In partnership with the leadership team, we defined the future state of the organisation, including vision, goals, and objectives. A new operating model aligned with these goals was crafted, accompanied by a strategy linked to key performance indicators (KPIs). This restructuring involved defining new roles, position descriptions, and process redesigns to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Introducing Agile Ways of Working: Agile rituals and practices were introduced to foster collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement, particularly in the Sales and Operations team, where this concept was novel. Nevertheless, they were eager to uplift their knowledge and work in a more nimble and transparent environment. The teams were proud that they apply Agile Ways of Working in their often high pressure sales environment!
A few examples of agile rituals and ways of working that FDG implemented:
- Daily Stand-Ups – At the start of each day. These short meetings were designed to provide a quick status update on the progress of each team member and identify any blockers that need to be addressed.
- Backlog & Sprints Concept – Business Channel Backlog of tasks and 2-week sprints were implemented for holistic improvement and marketing projects. Sprints for focused high impact & targeted sales were rolled out which made a significant impact in achieving sales targets.
- Retrospectives – Monthly for the teams to reflect on what went well, what didn’t go well, and identify areas for improvement. Retrospectives helped promote continuous improvement and created a culture of communication, transparency, and learning.
Measuring and evaluating the success of the operating model: The success of the new operating model and ways of working was measured and evaluated regularly. This involved setting metrics and KPIs that aligned with the goals and objectives, and tracking progress against these metrics. Data Insights is King!
Performance Framework: We designed and implemented a Performance Framework to support each team member defining expectations for performance not just focusing on sales targets. This helped to clarify what is expected of individuals and teams and it promoted accountability and a clear understanding of what is required to achieve success. This also helped in the understanding of capability gaps and informed employee development. By setting formal holistic goals and identifying areas for improvement, we found that the accountability and inspiration to achieve success in their business transformation skyrocketed.
Capability and Support: After a thorough capability gap review, FDG provided extensive targeted coaching and capability uplift to the leadership, sales & operations teams. This aimed to support comfort levels with the new ways of working and support a shift in mindset to agility, accountability, courageous communication, and personal conscious leadership to ensure they had the necessary tools and resources to succeed. This included providing regular one on one coaching, mentoring and team workshops. A capability planning and framework was rolled out.
Continuous Improvement: We implemented regular feedback loops to continuously improve the new ways of working and process. The sales team was encouraged to provide feedback and suggest areas for improvement. The operations and leadership team used this feedback and data to refine the processes and ensure they remained aligned with the customer’s needs and their goals.
By promoting collaboration, transparency, respect, and continuous improvement we supported Optus Business Channels to successfully transform their foundations to build a strong Operating Model, Ways of Working, Processes and Performance Structures. These foundational interventions were enhanced by uplifting team members and the leadership team to a higher performing mindset and culture. By becoming more agile, the teams are now better equipped to respond to changing market conditions and customer needs.
This business transformation journey has really paid off and the value has unleashed itself with an increase in productivity by 30% in one year and team retention and happiness quotients are high. Choosing to invest in a partnership that you trust and resonate with to effect long-lasting change is the foundational step to a successful transformation.
