The process of change

From its industrial beginnings, Manchester-based picme has established itself as one of the UK’s best-known business improvement consultancies - its services ranging from strategy and planning in the boardroom to detailed operations on the shopfloor.

General manager Jason Barclay, who has been with the company throughout most of its 12-year history, notes: “One thing that remains constant is that picme helps its clients drive business performance through the engagement of people at all levels.”

We will be able to help most companies find opportunities to drive performance improvement across all aspects of their business…

The company has also supported organisations outside the process industries including police forces, NHS and social housing clients, and undertaken engagements throughout Europe and the US.

Across these diverse sectoral experiences, Barclay said: “Our basic message is the same - in order to stay competitive, all organisations must continually look at what they are trying to achieve and how they are going about the manufacture and supply of their products and services.”

According to Barclay, picme gets hired because it understands this core dynamic and is able to address it: helping management to deliver more with less, and helping make the current situation work harder and more effectively.

“We will be able to help most companies find opportunities to drive performance improvement across all aspects of their business, and through their wider supply chains,” he said.

Typical projects have become as varied as the clients themselves; working on pan-European supply chain projects, redesigning services to improve customer performance and reduce cost within the public sector; helping process industry clients develop and deliver their corporate improvement strategy.

‘The common ground,” said Barclay, “is that we get to add real value. And what picme learns along the way becomes a part of the next piece of client work. In this way our services gather real depth.”

The final ‘proof of the pudding’ is that picme’s collaborative, results-driven approach makes for satisfied and returning customers - as evidenced by some significant new contracts close to picme roots within both the process industries and oil & gas sector.

“What we have also understood,” said Barclay, “is that delivering the performance improvement requires a coherent improvement plan; one that is aligned directly to what the organisation is trying to achieve - namely, the business case for change.”

Client change management typically needs to include activities and outcomes for all of the key business challenges. These typically include: competitiveness, cost avoidance, protection of cash and of course process safety.

“Only in this way,” said Barclay, “can organisations continue to learn, develop and maintain their competitive position within the ever-changing corporate landscape.”

To be an effective consultant, Barclay said “you need to truly understand the client organisation and what it is trying to achieve; the regulatory framework it operates in. You also have to speak the language of the industry sector, whether it happens to be oil & gas, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals or food.”

From there, the challenge is to engage with the client senior management team to identify and articulate what the organisation needs to achieve going forward.

“We start in the boardroom and we don’t stop until we have a workable blueprint of the management systems required, and the change in behaviours needed to ensure sustainable change will be achieved,” said Barclay.

The aim is to leave them with the knowledge, confidence and methodologies to continually drive improvement going forward.

“The ends and the means are properly balanced,” Barclay explained. “It is not our objective, for example, to create any number of Six Sigma black belts in record time or deliver 100 NVQ’s throughout the workforce. That would be pointless. Without the correct business framework the organisation itself will receive no benefit.”

Recent situations, for example, include: improving maintenance effectiveness within the capital-intensive process industries, undertaking an operational improvement project within a specialist printing company, based in Germany- without speaking German - redesigning the human resources processes within a police force.

On another front, it has helped to radically redesign a social housing landlord’s approach to dealing with anti-social behaviour.

“We require two fundamental abilities in our consultants,’” said Barclay. “Firstly, to really understand any given client issue and to engage with client staff at all levels - secondly, to also continually adapt our offering and approach. These are both key to helping picme move forward into the future.”

Barclay went on to say that the ‘clout’ and combined offering of picme’s parent group Haden Freeman gives it a unique perspective and advantage when engaging with senior management in the process industries.

“For example,” he said, “we can equip our clients with valuable lessons simply from working alongside HFL Risk Services in developing and shaping approaches to asset integrity, equipment reliability or human factors.”

This team is now seeing a fresh influx of work and interest from the process sector, according to Barclay, who concluded: “The process industries will always be part of our DNA. We understand the sector, its trading environment and its issues.”