Sectors
Our private sector experience includes consulting with corporations across a wide range of industry sectors, including engineering and construction, banking and financial services, aerospace and defence, tourism and hospitality, media, automotive and retail.
Our professional services expertise includes law firms, accountants, wealth and investment management firms, IT consultancies, advertising agencies and other fee-earning businesses.
We also have extensive experience of working within the public sector, including with central government departments, arm's length bodies and the NHS. We have worked extensively with devolved administrations, including the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, and with governments of offshore territories, including The States of Jersey and the Cayman Islands.
Our experience also includes consulting within the Defence sector over the past twenty years, producing option studies and business cases in response to different defence policies, strategies and initiatives, and setting out recommendations for improvement in both the operational and financial performance of logistics support.
Public Sector
The funding landscape, heightened public scrutiny, expectations for enhanced service delivery, new norms being created by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a pressing need to deploy UK plc's new post Brexit service model to ensure a strong UK economy and one that is globally competitive, amongst other, all point to a future public sector reform agenda that will require an unprecedented level of transformational change and leadership.
The structure, scale and operating models of the public sector and the vast array of public service organisations supporting it will need to be reenvisioned and further optimised in order to meet the demands of the future environment. This, almost certainly, will include a greater use of a mixed economy model between public, private and non-profit providers of public services, as well as new and sustainable citizen-centric models for service delivery.
This complex challenge of change will test the current culture, values and leadership of the public sector. In addition to structural change, it will demand - at pace - effective collaboration across departmental boundaries to facilitate the sharing of information, resources, as well as skills and innovation, in order to achieve the outcomes sought. It will also require significant new skills and capabilities to be acquired, developed, and for these to be in the right place at the right time. Critically, it will require the strengthening of both corporate and functional leadership across the public sector to drive the reform agenda.
Our focus and experience
Wallace Walker has extensive experience of facilitating organisational and management transformation in the public sector. We have a proven track record of delivery working with central government departments and arm's length public bodies, including the NHS. We have also worked extensively with devolved administrations, including the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, and with governments of offshore territories, including The States of Jersey and the Cayman Islands.
We have assisted on many projects involving both the setting up of new and the restructuring, re-aligning and transforming of existing public service organisations and their service models, including through the use of partnerships. We provide practical support to board, executive and senior managers to enable them to deal with complex agendas for change, and to build increased competence and confidence.
We have also been consulting within the Defence sector over the past twenty years, producing option studies and business cases in response to different defence policies, strategies and initiatives, and setting out recommendations for improvement in both the operational and financial performance of logistics support.
Our work
Case studies of our work with public sector clients are provided for your reference. They reflect our focus as both a management consultancy and a management development specialist firm, and highlight our ability to support our clients with services spanning strategy development through to capability planning and implementation.
Private Sector
Digitisation and the internet are examples of a growing list of disruptive technologies reshaping the basis for competition within many industry sectors and markets. Limitless integration opportunities now exist across supply chains, and boundaries within and in some cases between whole industries are being redrawn. Markets are being opened up to new start-ups and to major players from other sectors as competitive factors change and barriers to entry are reduced.
Blockchain and artificial intelligence are now driving the next wave of the digital transformation, offering tremendous scope to further re-design and improve business processes, create new and innovative business models, and to disrupt whole industries. In summary, we are in a technology-enabled and data rich transformative age, with superfluid markets and industry convergence, and where paradigms are being reshaped.
In response, business leaders now more than ever must challenge their established thinking about industry paradigms and adapt and innovate, considering how best to secure competitive advantage through greater use of technological innovation, data, new collaborations and new ways of working. This includes how to optimise connecting with customers and markets - including, critically, at the all-important customer interface - and how existing business and service models will need to be reimagined and re-engineered to seize the upside of technological disruption.
Focus must then turn to how best to acquire the new organisational capabilities and talent, and how best to manage risk, including from disruption beyond technological developments, e.g., from regulation and compliance, commercial, changing employment patterns, wider societal and consumer expectations, as well as from social media etc., thereby placing increasing emphasis on corporate governance.
Responding effectively to this ever-increasing transformative age will also place new demands on leadership capabilities. In addition to technical knowledge, leaders will undoubtedly need to be more proactive, strategic and forward thinking - raising the bar on the levels of insight and foresight needed to optimise planning and decision making, and, further, for managing complex change and transformation, including a preparedness to navigate both the provocative and the unexpected.
Our focus and experience
Wallace Walker has a wealth of experience of consulting within the private sector on issues concerning strategy, organisation and management. We assist clients with their need to respond effectively to changing business environments, including defining corporate strategy, re-thinking service delivery and service delivery models, and planning major restructuring and transformation projects.
We also provide support with addressing employee engagement and industrial relations issues, undertaking cultural audits, as well as supporting board and executive teams on governance and leadership issues. We have also been deployed to troubleshoot in operating companies experiencing performance shortfalls or to resolve issues concerning a lack of organisational and management alignment.
Our experience spans a wide range of industry sectors, including: engineering and construction; logistics; banking and financial services; aerospace and defence; tourism and hospitality; media; automotive; and retail. We work with and support businesses operating at all levels - global, international, national or regional.
To complement the above, we also have a wealth of experience in developing leadership and management capabilities through board, executive and management development. Our professional team are accomplished organisation development and change specialists, management trainers, executive coaches and team developers - experienced at operating at board, senior and middle management levels. We provide practical support to senior leaders to enable them to deal with complex agendas for change, building increased competence and confidence.
Our work
Case studies profiling our work with private sector clients are provided for your reference. They reflect our focus as both a management consultancy and a management development specialist firm, and highlight our ability to support our clients with services spanning strategy development through to capability planning and implementation.
Professional Services
The professional services sector has seen the highest level of foreign direct investment of any sector in the UK economy over the past 10 plus years. It has enjoyed continued and sustained growth over the same period and a strong UK economy and one that is globally competitive are key for this trend to continue. UK plc's post Brexit service model is therefore a key issue for business leaders within the sector. Adapting to new norms being created by the COVID-19 pandemic is also a key consideration.
Other key trends include: an increasing requirement for professional services firms (PSF) to be able to provide integrated multidisciplinary services; an increasing adoption of technology advancements, including cloud technology and mobile platforms, and more broadly e-commerce; an increasing requirement for global compliance advice; an increasing demand for fixed fees, value pricing and increased transparency; and a growing requirement for cyber security to ensure the safe storage and management of client data and client communications.
Recruitment, the acquisition of new skills and talent management are also an important focus for leaders of PSF’s as they continue to seek growth and evolve their business and service models. Employee engagement and culture is a further priority as leaders continue to recognise the importance of engaged and committed employees to staff retention, and to a healthy and successful PSF.
All of the above placed a high importance on the leaders of PSF’s to focus on the strategic management of their firms - "working on" as opposed to "working in" - and to adopt proactive organisational development strategies that will evolve their organisations and build the new organisational capabilities required by them to support future strategy, delivery and change.
Our focus and experience
Wallace Walker has a wealth of experience and expertise in providing consultancy services to professional services firms. Our clients include: law firms; accountancy practices; wealth and investment management firms; IT consultancies; media and advertising agencies; and other fee-earning businesses.
We specialise in assisting clients to improve their strategic focus in response to business environments often characterised by increasing cross border transactions, growing complexity and uncertainty, and increasing and changing client demands. Further, with developing the organisational and management capabilities necessary to implement their business strategies.
For firms specifically pursuing international business strategies, we also assist with developing the organisational and management capabilities necessary to operate effectively across borders. We bring, in addition to our work with professional firms, a wealth of experience and a proven track record of working with corporate organisations pursuing global and international strategies, and we continue to research and benchmark good practice in cross-border management.
Our work also involves assisting partners or an executive committee with improving the quality of their firm's performance management - a critical success factor in ensuring the implementation of business plans and the consequent improvements to fee-income and profitability.
Our work
Case studies profiling our work with professional services firms are provided for your reference. They reflect our focus as both a management consultancy and a management development specialist firm, and highlight our ability to support our clients with services spanning strategy development through to capability planning and implementation.