In order to maintain growth, whilst delivering excellence to customers – it is increasingly critical that leaders and businesses adapt (in a different and non-traditional way) to the emerging new world realities and increasingly competitive business landscape.

The environment in which most organisations are operating has radically changed, hence solutions that might have worked in the past may not now be fit for purpose. Consequently, there is a need to think differently about how high performance is secured and particularly how senior leaders interact with their people to drive new successes and how they empower their employees behind a joint aligned purpose.

The future world of work is one where every business needs to transform and embrace the adoption of digital technologies, the development of new business models, and the implementation of new ways of working. To enable any of these types of change, there needs to be a shift in behaviours to create new norms as the old normal doesn’t exist anymore. Organisations that embrace change and build for it will create a more resilient company culture and agility that can adapt to whatever the future of work may bring.

The needs of customers have changed along with buying patterns. This has changed the workplace. Cultural transformation helps organisations evolve their company culture to achieve their strategic objectives. It is also key to ensuring a positive employee experience.

The philosophy embedded in all Rialto business, culture, innovation and digital transformation programmes includes:

Aligning the right people, the right data and the right technology to support the delivery of transformational and operational outcomes
Supporting the design of organisations that will unleash high performance and strategic change
Understanding the rapidly changing competitive landscape including the adoption of AI and disruptive technologies and data
Providing insight on the readiness for change and level of capability there is for strategic change
Optimising collaboration to create a viable roadmap and implementation plan which deliver strategic imperatives

To find out more about how we have partnered with organisations to deliver new levels in cultural, digital and business transformations – read our case studies or contact a member of our team on + 44(0)7768 713 293 or +44 (0)20 3746 2960

Change is the new constant and only certainty

Rialto is at the forefront in providing insights on transformational change, as evidenced by our coveted award as Transformation Consultancy of the Year. We co-shape solutions that re-define business strategy, leadership alignment, business models and people behaviours to ensure continued organisation impact and growth.

Political, social, economic, regulatory and technological changes are constantly affecting businesses, increasing the risk of failure through not adapting quickly enough.

For many years, Rialto have invested in devising alternative change management methodologies that hold unique IP including our award winning Transforming the Performance Culture (TPC) approach. Our change management methodologies assist organisations to achieve successful transformation with employees co-piloting change decisions. By involving, motivating and creating more valued collaborations between all stakeholders our methods seek to create a more agile, forward thinking environment for constant change and adaptation Our aim is to transform performance with greater alignment and co-created change decisions.

Change Management best practice

The faster-paced business world and “change fatigue” is taking a toll. Many organisations struggle to achieve their overarching goals due to high levels of disengagement. Many stakeholders do not share and don’t feel involved in the vision and aspirations of the senior leadership team (the great resignation very much still being with us).

Organisations are recognising that the adoption of a more open and humanised change strategy using a data driven approach provides a 14x more likely opportunity to achieve change success.

This requires leaders to step up differently as change agents and to embed change priorities into culture providing a valuable opportunity for both the company and employees to grow.

In contrast to top down change which has historically been framed as a complicated process that require employees to implement change plans led from the top, Rialto change management methods are designed to provide employees with the opportunity to learn new skills, innovate, and improve their professional lives.

Rather than making assumptions about where a company should pivot to or waiting until a change is absolutely necessary, the objective is for employees and leaders to use data to keep their eye on trends and make decisions proactively.

The average organisation that Rialto speaks to has undergone at least two core business changes in the last three years, with over 50 percent expecting to go through more change in the next 12 months

We have extensive knowledge and experience of co-shaping transformational change where organisations have been impacted by a range of factors. These include mergers, acquisitions, digital transformation, external market dynamics and new business model imperatives including new technologies, automation and AI options.

Increasing Change Management Success

Rialto sets out to involve and align a workforce, skills and behaviours with the overall mission and strategy of the organisation, therefore enabling increased productivity, innovation and improved performance. Our methods are proven in projects across the UK and Europe and can lead to a 70-80% step-up in performance and an average of 12% sales increase and 8% increase in profit. Programmes also typically deliver 25% improvement in agility, alignment and engagement.

Our methodology can be applied to help execute a desired business strategy or to reset the culture and capability of an organisation. Many clients have used it as an alternative to traditional change management approaches where it has proven to be far less disruptive than top down approaches in achieving required outcomes more quickly on time, on cost and on budget.

For organisations planning to restructure, our methodologies help to engage those employees that are the right fit for the organisation while facilitating a dignified self-selection exit option for those who aren’t.

Typical challenges that Rialto encounter and are able to address more quickly include:

The accelerating pace of change leaving some individuals behind
Individuals can develop coping strategies which ultimately lead to dysfunctional and disruptive behaviours
Individuals become ‘cannot do’ rather than ‘can do’ as they struggle to adapt to changing circumstances
Leaders do not have the skills to confront personal productivity issues that would lead to a step change in performance
Leaders fail to identify operational dependencies that are conjoined with individual change requirements impeding improvement practices that will deliver operational and cost benefits.

At a time when many businesses are having to re-shape and change strategy and business models as well as adapt and change product and service offerings, secure growth and improve customer experience; the scale of change increases the risk of the above occurring and, if left to fester, can have an extremely negative impact on performance and competitiveness.

Developing organisations that are fit for the future

All Rialto change management methodologies are based on the latest global research and success case studies. We offer organisations an open, inclusive and less painful way of adapting to new market conditions with benefits including:

Faster and more efficient execution of business tratgey
Creating a more customer-centric culture with greater agility
Revitalising and align individuals and teams to secure short-, medium- and long-term deliverables through increased performance in hybrid working environment
Retaining and engaging high performing and high potential employees and while facilitating the self-selected exit of those who will not or cannot engage with the emerging new world realities
Enabling leaders to take greater ownership and drive step changes in performance through the organisation
Protecting and enhancing reputation as an employer of choice and therefore increasing the chances of attracting rare talent
Identifying how to operationalise the espoused benefits of a change programme and create a culture of continuous performance improvement and lowered/realigned operating costs.

Change can be challenging for those working at every level of the organisation. As we juggle more change initiatives (at a faster pace) than ever before, the need for new processes, new skills as well as new job roles, will continue to arise. Companies will find themselves having to change what they do and how they do it on a regular basis.

Rialto helps organisations transform so they can do the groundwork to become far more future-proof, shift to a more data focused, open approach that involves employees in decision making and supports everyone to continually adapt to what is happening around them.

Allowing innovation to flow freely throughout the organisation

Innovation is the lifeblood of any organisation. Without it an organisation will stagnate and quickly lose relevancy and competitive edge. With many industries experiencing digital disruption and other factors such as globalisation opening up new markets, a company’s ability to come up with and bring new products and services to market is even more important. And they need to do so in accelerated timeframes.

Innovation isn’t just about developing new products and services but striving to do things better and improving practices and processes and performance and productivity. With automation and new technologies bringing huge scope for improving operating models, leaders must ensure innovation is allowed to flow freely throughout the organisation.

Developing a culture and strategy for innovation

A disconnect sometimes exists between the top tier’s aspirations to be innovative and the more day-to-day risk (sometimes) more averse culture and practices that exist in the organisation. Rialto works with organisations to help eliminate the barriers to innovation and develop both a culture and strategy that enables it to flourish. This includes:

Instilling an intrapreneurial spirit in the organisation and a safe to fail culture
Implementing practical mechanisms in place to ensure great ideas come to the surface from anywhere in the company
Accelerating systems for rapid prototyping
Instilling an increased appetite for risk at senior levels
Acknowledging and rewarding innovation by building it into the culture & performance management practices.

Collaborative working and ecosystems

Innovation doesn’t just come from inside of the company but from external sources and routes as well. The world of business is experiencing a rapid rise of strategic partnerships, joint ventures and ecosystems which can provide organisations with rapid access and exposure to new thinking, technologies, ideas, products and services that will help them to access and penetrate new markets. Rialto works with leaders to maximise the value of these new approaches:

Identifying where opportunities for strategic partnerships might exist
Evaluating potential opportunities and reducing risk of failure
Helping to build relationships with third party and sometimes competitor companies
Advising on the leadership style and tone for partnership/ecosystem working
Building trust with partners/ecosystems members

Traditional routes to new products, services and ways of working are too constrained and slow for today’s fast-paced business environments when competitive edge can be quickly lost to a competitor company or disruptive start-up. Rialto aims to instil the mindset and provide practical measures for innovation to flourish throughout organisations so they too can disrupt and create new markets.

Innovation isn’t just about developing new products and services but striving to do things better

Making the right decisions for future growth opportunities

The complex and fast-paced operating environments demand organisations to be nimble and fleet of foot. Many opportunities for growth and expansion exist but day-to-day pressures and/or a scarcity of resources mean they cannot all be followed up. Organisations need to be able to quickly, efficiently and reliably determine the highest value opportunities.

Rapid scenario planning is a methodology that enables rapid decision-making based on data-driven insights which identify how to extract best value from growth opportunities. This enables teams to prioritise and act with clarity and a common rationale.

Data and rigour at every stage of the process

The core methodology underpinning rapid scenario planning is a stage-gate process. At each stage more data and rigour is applied. The four stages are:

Identify growth hypothesis
Scope out each potential growth opportunity
Review, prioritise and validate growth opportunities
Develop go-to-market plans to capture value

Rialto engages key stakeholders early on in the process to filter down the opportunities that will deliver most value. The methodology is aimed at driving a consensus through a common framework for why decisions are being made.

Activities and outputs

Each stage involves a number of activities. These include workshops, stakeholder interviews and creating the evaluation framework at the hypothesis stage; assessing markets and competitors, modelling and developing SWOT and summary for each opportunity at the scoping stage; design, execution and analysis of the primary research activities at the validation stage; and identifying objectives and capability requirements, resourcing and budgeting at the planning stage.

Outputs from these activities include a “long list” and a prioritised list of potential growth opportunities, a documented diagnostic for each hypothesis, a high-level business case for each opportunity, an outline of value proposition for each growth opportunity and plans for alignment around the main action steps from all key stakeholders.

In these uncertain and unpredictable times, organisations need a structured and evidence-based way to make the right decisions regarding future business opportunities. The Rialto rapid scenario planning service is designed to provide this and in turn helps organisations to pursue ambition growth plans.

In these uncertain and unpredictable times, organisations need a structured and evidence-based way to make the right decisions

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Change, culture and business transformation