CONSULTANCY SERVICES

THE CHALLENGE: MAXIMIZING VALUE FROM INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES

The former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan once famously remarked that despite its phenomenal growth over the past 100 years the physical 'weight' of the US economy in the late1990's was much the same as it had been a century earlier. The locus of value creation and economic power had in effect shifted from physical resources to intangible, intellectual resources.

Despite ups and downs on world markets, from the bursting of the dot com bubble to the current rise in the value of hard commodities due to resource scarcity and growing demand from China and other fast developing countries the deep underlying trend towards a 'weightless' economy continues. Whether in resources, manufacturing or services modern organizations know that their survival and success increasingly depends on how well they manage their investments in human talent and other key intellectual assets, such as systems, processes and corporate brands.

A fundamental problem however for today's managers seeking to improve organizational performance is that the strategies, structures and methods they use frequently reflect the thinking of a bygone era, where success was based largely on control of labour, money and physical goods. Few large organizations today for example can claim to be able to explain how and to what extent their workforce impacts their bottom line or predict how particular hiring decisions or HR management practices will affect that impact. Even fewer can claim to understand how interdependencies between people and information systems, people and corporate brands, and between intellectual resources and other performance elements impacts overall business performance, thus how to strengthen performance by addressing critical gaps and weaknesses.

These problems represent a major challenge for many organizations.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

Burton-Jones & Associates has over twenty years experience in assisting clients in Asia, Australia, Europe, and USA with strategies and practical techniques for creating value and improving business performance from intellectual resources. Our clients include major national and international organizations in both the public and private sectors and in industries ranging from banking and financial services to IT, retailing, staffing, engineering and construction, logistics and energy.

We assist organizations by improving their effectiveness in four key areas:

Sourcing Effectiveness:

-Understanding the talent they need to meet their strategic goals
-Deciding how to obtain it e.g. to insource or outsource
-Maintaining supply flexibility while optimizing fit

Conversion Effectiveness:

-Aligning contracts and HR management practices with the specific needs of different categories of internal and external staff
- Monitoring workforce engagement and willingness to contribute
-Appropriating and leveraging the benefits of workforce talent for organizational effectiveness

Outcome Effectiveness:

-Identifying and measuring the influence of people and other intellectual resources on the bottom line
-Understanding resource and management interdependencies and improving linkages e.g. between people, systems and brands, between intellectual and physical resources and between resources and services.

Management Effectiveness:

-Improving management capabilities for analyzing opportunities and risks
-Improving organizational systems for monitoring, controlling and coordinating intellectual resources