McKenzie Consulting Success Story
McKenzie Consulting prepares for rapid growth
Industry: Temporary, contract and permanent staff in retail and textile, clothing and footwear sectior.
Headquarters: Sydney, NSW
Locations: Offices in Sydney and Melbourne, Nationwide coverage
Staff: 25+ permanent staff
THE NEED
McKenzie director Mark Rohald is confident of, and planning for, continued growth. "Businesses I have run in the past typically suffered from the same problem," Rohald said. "They tended to grow faster than the systems could cope, so the wheels started coming off the minute you started doing really well.
"This time I have turned it around the other way and said that given we are confident that we will be able to grow significantly, we had better have systems in place that can handle that growth, even if we are going for overkill in the early stages."
Rohald made the decision to update his company's electronic systems, but it was not just about buying software; he used it as an opportunity to re-engineer his business.
THE PROBLEM
"My big concern," Rohald said, "was to make sure that the people in our organisation understood what we needed to do, understood how we did it, understood that there was a better way of doing it and how we were going to do it when we went live."
Rohald was willing to adapt company processes to the FastTrack system if it turned out, after analysis, that they were 'best of breed'. "There were things FastTrack had developed that made absolute sense in enabling us to streamline our processes," Rohald said. "Then there were things that we did that we wanted to continue doing and we had to find a way of being able to do it using FastTrack.
"That's all possible when you really understand how your business operates, otherwise you just throw this layer of technology on top of your existing business and suddenly people say 'But it doesn't do what I want it to do'; but that's not the reason. The reason is because you don't understand how you can get it to do what you want it to do."
THE SOLUTION
After investigating the various system options available in the marketplace for recruitment companies, McKenzie Consulting selected FastTrack for its easy-to-use and comprehensive interface, ease of understanding of the system architecture, the speed at which it could be installed and implemented to 'live', the quality of support and length of the software's development history, and for its cost effectiveness.
At the start of McKenzie’s implementation phase, Rohald used FastTrack’s process management review service to examine the company’s internal methodologies. “In a previous life, I started and managed an e-business,” Rohald said, “and one of the lessons I learned was that most of the investment of time and effort should take place prior to the implementation of the software solution.
“It’s the planning, it’s the thinking through, it’s the matching of systems, it’s understanding your current work flows and being able to adapt your work flows to suit the new software environment. It’s looking at the benefits of implementing some of the disciplines that come out of the software into your current work processes.”
The process management review aims to build awareness, within both the client and FastTrack’s team, of the client’s work procedures. This helps to ensure that the client gets the best possible system ‘fit’ and the best possible return on its investment in a FastTrack system.
Done correctly, processes and procedures will be streamlined to work best with the system, and vice versa – it is a two-way joining of human and electronic systems. FastTrack clients can optimise the best use of the system’s capabilities for their business – an enormous advantage in a speed-oriented marketplace.
The following table describes the six stages of FastTrack’s process management review.
FastTrack’s process management review
STAGE |
DESCRIPTION |
1 |
The FastTrack consultant speaks with the client about their expectations from their investment in a FastTrack system. |
2 |
The consultant undertakes a site visit to:
|
3 |
The consultant writes a comprehensive report, which includes a summary of what happened during the site visit, outcomes, recommendations (which may include customisation, training required or additional products), troubleshooting tips, etc. |
4 |
The client and consultant liaise about the report's recommendations. This is a two-way feedback process, building a partnership between the consultant and client. This become an ongoing relationship. |
5 |
The client makes decisions on the report's recommendations on the path ahead and the actions needed. |
6 |
The consultant and the client work together to implement recommendations based on the client's decision. |
Mark Rohald said he would not have bought a new system if it had not been backed up by FastTrack’s process management review. “I would not make a decision to move to an entire new type of system unless we had gone through significant thinking and discussion on how it was going to fit with our existing processes,” he said.
“The FastTrack process management analysis enabled us to ask all the what ifs and the hows. So many other organisations buy software, load it on the server and say ‘Right, now let’s use it’. But they haven’t thought through how, what, when and where and it creates a huge shock with their staff, who end up rejecting it. I do not believe you can put in an entire software solution unless you really analyse how it’s going to affect the organisation.”
FastTrack, Rohald and teams of McKenzie staff spent two full, intense days undertaking the process management review. They documented company and individual consultant processes and work flows, how they operated under the present system, and how the FastTrack workflows needed to operate. Internal shortfalls were identified, corrections made and finetuning undertaken to fit everything seamlessly with FastTrack.
FastTrack believes that undertaking a process management review phase before training staff and going ‘live’ on a system greatly boosts the likelihood of a successful implementation and consultant use of the system’s full range of abilities and time-saving features. The review gives both the client and the FastTrack project leader a much clearerpicture of how the business and each of its consultants work, and exactly what they
want out of the new system.
It makes the transition period smoother and staff require fewer calls to the technical support helpline. The training of the system becomes more meaningful because it is tailored to the consultants’ everyday work routine. The review also gives the client a much better grasp of what can be achieved with a FastTrack system.
It becomes a blending between the client’s business and system, rather than the client trying to impose its methodologies on the system, or vice versa, which will end up causing dissatisfaction about the implementation.
Mark Rohald said a good example of a specific improvement made as a result of the process management review was how résumés were now handled. “Every single résumé that comes through gets logically stored and attached to a particular job, that is allocated to a particular client, that is allocated to a particular consultant,” Rohald said. All this is done electronically, with no paper copies printed and without the consultants having to do the processing.
The process management review enabled the staff training program to be tailored by FastTrack to the needs and work flow of each class of user, especially since these demands were thoroughly understood and documented. In conjunction, Rohald developed specific training and user manuals to reflect how McKenzie staff would be using the FastTrack system – what would be entered into each field, how McKenzie would use the fields, etc, to exactly match internal processes.
Rohald said that process management review was probably most useful at a changeover point. “However, many businesses have systems that are 10 years old that they think are excellent and efficient and the best way to go,” he said.
"But how do you know that? You don’t know until you have some outside party who understands how many others are doing it and you get them to come and look at, and critically evaluate, your systems. You may think it is the best, but maybe it’s not.”
