Optus is one of Australia’s largest telecommunications and technology providers and their Optus Business Centres provide support to small to medium sized businesses through tailored assistance and solutions. The Business Centres desired to enhance their foundational operating model, ways of working, leadership and management of sales performance to ultimately increase productivity, the customer experience and revenue.
The FDG Transformation team closely partnered with Optus Business to pilot and implement new business transformation solutions to achieve the desired enhanced state. A key success factor was to increase agility in response to customer needs and market changes however to do this we needed to explore the inner state first.
Understanding the current state: The first step was to assess the current state of the Business Centres People, Culture, Operational and Sales Processes and identify areas for improvement. This involved interviewing sales staff, analysing sales and other data, and identifying pain points in the current ways of working and processes.
A New Operating Model: Working closely with the leadership team we defined the future state of the organisation. This involved workshopping and identifying the vision, goals and objectives, and we designed an operating model that aligned with these goals. We implemented a new way of working to ensure the newly defined vision was brought to life through their strategy that we worked through together to define linking to KPIs. A restructure with newly defined roles, position descriptions and redesign of processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness was successfully rolled out.
Agile Ways of Working in a Sales Environment: We introduced Agile rituals and ways of working promote collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement. This was a very new concept to the Sales and Operations teams, and they were eager to uplift their knowledge and work in a more nimble and transparent environment. The teams are 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 that 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 helps 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 skyrocketed.
Capability and Support: After a thorough capability gap review, FDG provided extensive targeted coaching and capability uplift to the leadership, sales & operations teams to support comfort levels with the new ways of working and to 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.
The 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.