Egremont Group is a management consultancy specialising in fast, flexible and lasting business transformation with capability development at its heart.
We were founded in 2000 to reflect the changing requirements of our clients. We work as one integrated team, blending our talent with yours and with a commitment to focus on sustainability and passing skills and capabilities onto our client team members.
We are proud of the calibre of our consultants who are able to switch seamlessly from content to process to behavioural consulting and bring with them a breadth and depth of industry and consulting experience. This enables us to achieve great results, with an average project payback of 11:1.
Our work falls into two categories: Keeping your Organisation in Shape and Engaging your Organisation in Change. The former covers Benchmarking, Organisation Design, Lean, Innovation and Retail Redesign and the latter covers Change Management, Balanced Scorecard, Strategy Implementation, IT Mobilisation and Post Merger Integration.
What exactly have some of our best known brands been doing to steer themselves through the recession? What impact has that had on their organisation – on the way they work, on their organisation structure, on their culture, on their people? Has HR played a leading role during this time?
No-one has a crystal ball but how far do we look ahead at the future at macro events and trends that are irrefutable and that will shape our lives? Do we understand how this will impact our customers, our employees and how we organise our businesses today?
To complement our leading research into the Head Office of the Future and into how organisations are preparing for the challenges of the next decade, we are asking these questions and more of HR Directors within some of the UK’s leading organisations. We will be featuring a new interview every month, starting in December with Lynne Weedall, Group HR Director of Best Buy Europe. Towards the middle of 2010 we will publish a report exploring the themes arising from the interviews in the context of the work that we are increasingly being asked to do around business transformation and strategy execution. If you would like to receive an email alert informing you of the next featured interview and/or if you would like to be involved in our research project, please contact Natalie on nataliegordon@egremontgroup.com
A full in-depth profile of this consulting firm exists. Please log in to view the in-depth profile (clients only).
Improving productivity and quality within water productionThe Water Production division of our client had been performing reasonably well but productivity and quality improvement had flat lined. The business plan was based around a continued improvement on regulatory measures (OPA points) which trends suggested would not be achieved. In the past two years there had been regular major water quality incidents...
Introducing annualised hours and improving performance at a luxury UK chocolate manufacturer and retailerOur client, a luxury chocolate manufacturer, was suffering from poor cross functional working which was affecting several processes including sales forecasting and OTIF delivery.
With 79% of factory colleagues disagreeing with the statement “People feel valued at work”, and the introduction of SAP causing a disruption in productivity...
Lean and cultural transformation in the steel industryOur client had recently gained a new CEO but were facing a declining outlook in sales and there had been a loss of key customers. Meanwhile, the new corporate strategy aimed to double the organisations profit in 5 years.
Ownership had changed hands several times. In addition, there were two separate manufacturing sites which were being run as separate...
Developing a 5 year vision and plan and improving leadership alignment and teamworkOur client was facing major changes in the world in which they operated. Factors such as climate change and shifts in consumer preferences, shareholder expectations and employee engagement all needed to be considered in the creation of a 5 year vision and plan. We had also been asked to help improve leadership alignment and teamwork which were considered...
Facing into tough site decisions following a merger of 2 agrichemical businessesFollowing the merger of two agrichemical businesses, the introduction of a new MD and lots of previous cost cutting initiatives our client was facing tough decisions regarding its site. There were six factories on the site which had been there 100 yrs and the site had lost its position as premier site. Powerbase and new products were moving to...
European supply chain integrationOur client had recently merged with another agrichemicals business. As such there were two separate supply chains which were designed very differently: One consisted of big plants with single use and long production runs whilst the other had medium sized plants built for flexibility and product switching. There were questions on the future of the industry...
Getting the SAP implementation back on track for a global agrichemical companyOur client had been running SAP for 3 years: they were migrating from R2 to R3. In order to improve global planning / scheduling they were in the process of implementing SAP APO (Advanced Planning Optimiser) however the programme was running 18 months behind schedule. Egremont was invited to help get the programme back on track.
Removing complexity and improving performance for a pub and restaurant chainThe hypothesis was that by running over 20 different brands of pubs and restaurants, HO had adopted a ‘command & control’ approach, removing any local initiative opportunities, encouraging innovative thinking and business development, so that the managers were merely ‘keyholders’. The pubs & restaurants were receiving...
Removing complexity and waste for a leading UK hospitality companyThe starting hypothesis with our client, a pub and restaurant operator, was that the managers and teams running the units were spending too much time on Head Office generated initiatives / policies . . .and that this was detracting from their core value added activity of looking after the customer and generating sales.
The project objective was to...
Increasing revenues and decreasing costs for a leisure and fitness providerOur client was facing declining net membership in its clubs, despite a growing market. Profitability was coming under pressure from non-controllable rent, rates and utilities increases, which had to be offset by membership fee increases, driving down net revenues. As such, staff motivation was low, turnover was high and capabilities and staffing structures...
Implementing Category Management best practice at a UK airportFollowing a demerger from its parent company, our client lacked essential Retail expertise, knowledge, processes and capability. The Retail offer was no longer relevant to its customer and passenger base and our client were unaware of who the passengers actually were and what their wants, needs and aspirations were. A detailed understanding of...
Developed an optimum store operating & wage cost model for an exciting High Street Fashion retailerThe current store operating model was based around a one size fits all approach, based predominantly on physical store attributes. The majority of stores were either under or over staffed for their turnover levels and there was a significant imbalance between full and part-time staff contract.
Stores were unable to manage meet peak time customer...
Strategic review for a leading pharmacy chainOur client was facing an increasing profit gap and wanted our help to review their 3 year strategic plan and recommend how to reduce the profit gap. Their profits were being hit by 2 factors:
Government moves to reduce drug costs meaning new contracts, changes to tariffs with reduced margins on generic drugs & additional competition through...
Improving customer focus and removing complexity for a high street retailerOur client wanted to increase sales and customer focus whilst reducing costs. Furthermore, they sought to remove complexity and workload from stores to focus on more customer facing time. They needed to dramatically reduce store budgets over 3 years and develop new operating models by format. This was at the same time as improving the delivery performance...
Finding cost efficiencies for a department store chainOur client needed to reduce Head Office costs particularly in the Commercial and Buying & Merchandising function. They also recognised that it was important to understand the root cause of the significant cost build-up and that only reducing the head count without significantly altering the way they worked would be risky for the business
New concept development for a health and beauty retailerA large multiple competing against new discounter entrants had lost 20% market share in 2 years. A low cost, low investment solution had to be found to halt the downward trend. The internal team did not have a viable concept to address the competition despite 12 months’ work on the issue and so Egremont were asked to "launch and learn"...
Supply chain evaluation for a pharmacy chain due to an acquisitionA leading Pharmacy chain had acquired another similar, but smaller, company that appeared to have a more cost effective logistics model via self distribution. Our client wanted to know whether this model could be applied across the expanded group, and if so, what impact would it have on the supply chain economic model. They also wanted to know...
Benchmarking & org design for a DIY retailerThis UK retailer had been growing tremendously for a number of years. However, they had not put in place the structures and mechanisms to support the scale of their growth. Ambitious plans were in place for yet more substantial growth in the years to come and they wanted to understand the implications of their vision on the structure of their organisation....
Organisation Design within a UK grocerOur client’s strategic direction had begun to change as growth was being driven by new channels. However, organisational design had not changed to keep pace. Head office cost as a percentage of sales was growing and the physical Head Office had hit capacity but new headcount was required to invest in growth areas.
Competitors were reacting to...
Concept Store Development for an Australian TV & Radio Broadcasting Corporation with retail shopsOur client, an Australian TV and Radio broadcasting corporation with retail shops, was in terminal decline. The leadership team knew they were great Broadcasters, but bad retailers. They had tried to sell their shops but found they could not get a high enough price - so had to continue managing them. The shops had no clear consumer draw or competitive...
Achieving growth through a simplified, cost effective organisation structure The company was anticipating rapid growth to double in size within five years. The Board wanted to create a more centralised customer focused organisation that retained its core essence and culture. The Egremont Group was asked to review the central organisation and understand how it would need to change to support growth and what barriers might...
From IT Implementation to “Custodians of Change”Our client was half way through a four year programme to replace their global customer management system (used by around 8,000 employees worldwide). The primary goal was to make it much easier for customers to do business with the client. The supplementary goal was to replace legacy systems which were cumbersome and clumsy and to make it...
From reactive to proactive performance management by using Balanced ScorecardWe had been working with the client for over 18 months, helping design and implement a stores’ improvement programme using our hothousing methodology. One of the cornerstones of the hothousing methodology is the balanced scorecard which we use to drive and sustain performance improvement so as part of the roll out we had embedded a balanced...
Reducing complexity and finding focusOur client had identified that the overall costs of running its central buying and merchandising department were high compared with competitors and the function was steeped in organisational complexity. With nearly 2000 live suppliers, a store by store approach to buying and ranging and inaccurate space data, priorities and accountabilities were...
Creating an organisation structure for the futureOur client was a leading retailer looking to stay competitive in a deteriorating economic climate. Over the past few years, the combination of the rapid growth of new business areas, headcount creep and increasing complexity of the organisational structure had led to a working environment where it was more and more difficult for people to get...
Lean processes and customer back thinking driving a business case for changeOur client had recently been bought by a private equity firm and the commercial function had been tasked with finding operational efficiencies. In addition, they had recently merged with another retailer and were in the process of re-branding and re-launching their stores and merging head office processes. This was set against a background...
Business Transformation at one of the UK’s largest water utilities companiesOur client had experienced a difficult couple of years and was struggling to meet its regulatory targets. We were asked to support a new management team to deliver an improvement programme designed around process efficiency and cultural transformation. Our brief was to help them to address challenges around morale, operational performance...
Culture change driving profitabilityDespite increasing competition and declining margins, the business had an objective to double sales and triple profits in 3 years. This was against a background of staff discontent, a top-heavy structure in stores and poor leadership in the field.
We were asked to support the business to find a way to accelerate progress towards its financial...
Solution development and testing in a diverse cultural environmentOur client, a global oil producer, wanted to improve its convenience retailing profitability in Europe where their turnover was rising but profits were stagnant or declining. Their traditional approach of developing solutions centrally and handing them over to local teams to implement had failed to gain traction.
We were asked to help them design...
IT offshoring programme in IndiaThe business case for this project was predicated on shifting engineering roles to India by February 2008. A ‘captive’ IT department had been set-up in Bangalore in 2003. Some of the support areas had been offshored but progress had slowed down (the low hanging fruit had been done).
The teams were now facing the challenge of transitioning...
Bringing ideas to lifeAfter recently undergoing a significant head office cost cutting operation, our client was faced with flat sales and margins. Increasing competition from new market entrants such as Tesco, Sainsbury and existing competitors meant that they were losing market share in an underperforming industry – their economic model was looking fundamentally...
Organisational review to reduce costs whilst maintaining growthOur client, a leading UK high street retailer had adopted an aggressive growth strategy, targeting increased productivity, margin and trading space. This had led to a more than 30% rise in central costs over two years. As the market began to soften, other retailers were systematically reducing costs and our client asked for support in identifying where...
Practical innovationOur client is the world’s leading life sciences business, a result of a merger between large British and Swiss global businesses. They recognised that the global landscape they were operating in was increasingly subject to a number of significant changes, including: increasing competition, greater price pressure and government regulation,...
Improving retail performance within an airport operatorDespite being one of the worlds largest airport operators, our client felt that there was still more opportunity to improve the retail offer and significantly increase retail spend per passenger. This would require all aspects of the customer experience to be addressed, including product and service choice and delivery, visual merchandising and layout,...
Megan looked at her watch – Monday 10am, time to log on for the weekly trading meeting. The KPIs had shown her that there was only one issue to raise that week and her team had already come to her with an idea for fixing it. That meant they would finish on time and she could join the weekly product of the future forum. She had been following...
Not much is certain in this world but one thing is a given: the NHS is facing large budget cuts. The only unknown is how big those cuts will be. We can also safely say that there are certain outcomes that we all want for our Hospitals: we would like to see an environment where the patient journey is seamless, their length of stay is reduced, their...
The offshoring phenomenon
How many of us have experienced the frustration of talking to a representative of our “local” bank / train operator / insurance provider based in Bangalore? A Mail on Sunday survey of 4000 readers found that 87% of those surveyed would switch provider to avoid talking to overseas staff. Abbey National closed...
We’ve heard it all before. In today’s climate of frequent mergers and acquisitions, we’re constantly being told to embrace the change. We have to be leaner, faster, creating more growth, more profit. Most importantly, we have to impress the new owners / shareholders with ever more ambitious plans. Sound familiar? More and more of...
With a recent report from the CIPD stating that the real cost of making someone redundant can reach £16,375 per employee laid off, without factoring in related costs such as higher staff turnover and reduced productivity, we examine how best to motivate your staff to improve company performance, whether they are the “survivors” or...
In an environment in which competition is becoming fiercer by the day, retailers are constantly faced with the annual challenge of achieving high growth targets in low growth markets. Yet retailers often become focused on cost cutting and driving efficiencies, rather than using innovation. Currently, the hot question is: what can retailers do to innovate...
In our home lives, IT excites, inspires and shapes the way we live. The way we listen to music, the way weshop, the way we socialise and communicate, the flexible ways in which we can work are all shaped by the latest advances in IT. Buzzwords like blogs, wikis, mashups, and websites such as MySpace and Facebook permeate our culture and influence our...
Stripping out waste, cutting costs, doing less with more, economising: these are all words and phrases synonymous today with Lean. Downsize, smartsize, rightsize are all words synonymous with the Business Process Re-engineering phenomenon of the 90’s. On that basis you could be forgiven for thinking that Lean is merely a re-branding of Business...
