Touchpoint Change! Newsletter Template

Welcome to the Spring edition of Change!, the newsletter of Touchpoint Change Consulting.

As the private and public sector both gear up to address their challenges in the coming year, the pace of change is increasing. We need to ready ourselves for it, prepare our organisations and develop the skills of all our people to make it a success.

• How best (and how not) to use consultants - six benefits and pitfalls. Part 1

We hope you find it interesting and useful. We are always happy to talk so please get in touch to discuss your challenges or ideas.

One of the perennial problems of business cases is that is they seem to offer so much certainty in theory, but are stubbornly unpredictable in practice.

The problem is that the solutions that we develop in workshops and on paper are unencumbered by the messiness of the real world. They rarely take into account the compromises and complexities necessary to make a change work let alone the reaction of the organisation to the change itself.

Consulting assignments, or dare we say it, consultants themselves, can sometimes seem costly, unnecessary or ultimately unsatisfactory. You may not have experienced this yourself, but you could agree that there is a risk!

Actually, Consultants can be a very powerful force in your organisation, if brought in at the right time and managed correctly. Here is part 1 of the Touchpoint Change guide about how best to use consultants and how to avoid the pitfalls.

Stephen Justice specialises in evaluating and defining strategy, developing business cases and appraising investments. He has 20 years experience of strategic and financial management, consultancy, change management, process improvement and also interim management. He now helps organisations gain a clear picture of where their money goes, implements financial/ performance management processes and works to deliver the benefits of investments.

Steve Allington is an experienced and accomplished contact centre professional with over 15 years in contact centre transformation, international project management, interim management and consultancy. He undertakes strategy, set-up, recruitment, performance improvement, training, technology selection, troubleshooting and operational management. Steve is a qualified PRINCE 2 Practitioner and has a track record in financial services, central government, telecoms, technology, utilities, manufacturing, FMCG and outsourcing among other sectors.

See our Team Page to read about other specialists. We offer over 400 consultants and interim managers across the UK.

Organisations increasingly rely on information and the systems that process it. These systems are becoming more complex and more critical and the challenges of managing them or updating them are no easier.

Many organisations choose to invest in their IT team on the ground, but an increasing number are moving to cloud computing. Software houses are increasingly doing this, but in April Nick Clegg suggested that moving government systems into 'the cloud' could save huge amounts of public money too.

“If you come across someone in public service who is cheerfully passionate about helping people, has demonstrated courage in the face of adversity, and is always looking to change things, then stop and think....you may just have found yourself a Trailblazer.”

So begins the recent report from one of our partners, Wickland Westcott Search & Selection, and Manchester Business School on Transformational Leadership in the public sector. Click here to read the report.

Forthcoming workshop dates:

The Deming Transformation Forum 2010 – Out Of The Crisis ... and Back To The Future. Tuesday 11th to Thursday 13th May. The thinking and methods, tools and techniques to reinvent our organisations and prepare for the times ahead. Co-sponsored by Touchpoint Change, this is “consistently the most thought provoking conference of the year”. Reserve the dates in your diary and click here for details or click here for a newsletter and a booking form.

Touchpoint Change will be running a series of Breakfast Sessions over the summer for Directors in Local Government. The events will explore some of the key challenges of change as the pressure increases on all of us during the year. Call us for more details or e-mail marina.turner@touchpointchange.co.uk.

At Touchpoint Change we are always looking for ways to help clients succeed. Some new services are summarised here:

Team Mapping – High performing teams understand each other’s strengths and styles and put these to good use. We can help you foster better teams so as to improve team relationships and accelerate the rate of business improvement. This link describes the creation of a team map that outstanding teams will refer to over and over again. Click here for details.

FREE business mentoring for SMEs – whether a senior manager is new to a role or experienced, anyone could benefit from a mentor's challenge, open mindedness and support. Click here for details of the scheme that is available in the NW of England. Further schemes are available in other Regional Development areas - ask your local Business Link service for details. They also provide a wide range of good advice for free.

Could YOU be a business mentor? – there are opportunities in the NW of England to help SMEs navigate the economic climate and grow their business successfully. If you think you could help, click here for more information.

High Tech High Growth – a new service offering consulting, resourcing and access to finance. If you are a high tech entrepreneur click here for details of how it could help you.

Buy Time To Survive & Thrive - When the future is uncertain, markets are tight and credit is expensive, one of the most precious commodities is time. Now is the time to take action to release capital, reduce waste, accelerate processes and reduce cost, you can buy vital extra time to grow or turnaround your business even whilst others are slowly losing market share or cash. Click here for details.

See also our digital brochures – turn the pages on screen to read about some of our services to identify opportunities for change and deliver them successfully

Touchpoint Change Consulting helps organisations to improve performance and cost – whether making a radical change or embedding a structured approach to continuous improvement. We are always happy to provide some advice and in due course hope that it develops into the opportunity to work with you. To explore this or for a free discussion, phone/email us or browse the web site for more information. Please email us at office@touchpointchange.co.uk. Thank you.