Client case studies
Integra
Helping to prepare Integra’s senior managers for their future roles and also to increase the value they add to the company now.
Integra is the UK’s leading dealer group in the Office and IT Supplies market. By combining the buying power of many of the country’s independent dealers, and offering professional marketing and support services, Integra enables member companies to buy at better prices, increase margins and differentiate their businesses.
The challenge
Integra is a large operation with around 400 member companies, so its continued success not only impacts its own future, but potentially that of its many members. To ensure the company’s future stability, Integra’s Board of Directors have wisely put succession planning, and the future development of their company, at the top of the agenda.
“We were in the fortunate position of having a team of senior managers who were performing very well in their existing roles. What the board now wanted to establish was a robust management succession plan. We wanted the senior management team to develop the broader skills required to eventually run the company; to extend their business vision beyond their own specialism and to fully appreciate how their role, and that of their department, fitted into Integra’s business vision and strategies. We felt that a better understanding of how their actions and decisions impacted other departments, and the business, would benefit Integra now, and better equip them for more strategic roles later. The soft skills division of Xpertise is the company we recommend to our members so we asked them to help us look at potential solutions,” explained Simon Rubach, Operations and IT Director at Integra.
The solution
Kevin Langley, one of Xpertise’s management development consultants, worked closely with the team. “After detailed briefings from the Board, we established the aim of the programme to be the expansion of the vision of the management team. We wanted to help them to fulfil their roles, while taking account of the fuller business picture, prioritising the success of the company as a whole and its business vision and objectives. They needed to run their departments as active parts of a cohesive business, looking externally to the needs of shareholders and customers and internally to the motivation and commitment of their teams. The ultimate aim was to create a management team more fully equipped to take over the broader management of the business as a whole. We wanted to prepare these senior managers for their future roles, but also to increase the value they added to the company now”.
The training strategy was specifically focused on the 8-10 individuals that made up Integra’s senior management team. They were consulted as a group, and each was interviewed individually to establish the nature of their current role, their current skills, their perceived strengths and weaknesses, what they considered to be their major challenges, and the company’s major challenges. They also discussed their aspirations for the programme itself and for themselves within it.
From these meetings Xpertise developed a strategy document that set out the findings of the interviews; linked the needs of the individual and those of the organisation; focused these on achieving the company’s long term objectives and began the creation of a sophisticated development programme.
Xpertise recommended that the first event was held over two days, including an overnight stay and a launch dinner, to strengthen team spirit and reinforce the importance the company attached to the programme.
Business Excellence was one of the central themes of the programme. What is it that makes a business excellent? How could this be applied to Integra in practical terms. “For this part of the programme we used the European Foundation for Quality, one of the best of the many business excellence models available. This model focuses on exactly what enables a business to become an excellent business, and how looking at business results, good or bad, to fully understand their causes, can reveal key issues for success. The 5 main enablers in this model are Leadership, People Management, Quality and Strategy, Processes and Resource Management. These created the structure and focus for the initial 2 day programme and the following 4 one day workshops,” explained Kevin Langley.
To further ensure the programme fully engaged with Integra’s business, the management team were tasked with working on a live business project as part of the process. ‘Initiative’ one of Integra’s core brands needed redevelopment so this project was discussed during the workshops, the skills and knowledge needed to help progress and manage it were developed, and this real life business scenario was incorporated into experiential learning activities.
“I believe that what was delivered was much more than a standard training programme, it really was true management development. We have moved significantly towards achieving one of our major corporate objectives, a robust management succession plan. The training also delivered instant benefits by improving skills such as problem solving, decision making, influencing, team-leading and financial awareness across all of our senior managers, with the whole programme specifically tailored to their individual needs. The programme also had the practical benefit of progressing a real business project, while increasing the cohesion of the management team. We have been delighted with what was delivered,” concluded Simon Rubach.