Mission-Critical Strategy Deployment

The Starting Point

The UK regulator was dissatisfied with the quality of the country’s distribution network. They declared a new regulatory regime, which drastically changed the revenue and incentive structure for DNOs, driving greater improvements in network performance and customer satisfaction. 

Our client knew they had to drastically change how they worked to remain profitable, realizing they were missing key roles and capabilities to succeed within the new environment.

Our diagnosis showed that their organization lacked an internal customer responsible for overall performance of the network and a clear prioritization of how work was done. 

Coordination between key network decision makers and front-line workers was almost non-existing; due to poor coordination skills to deliver work on time and on budget, in a culture of low trust where wasteful procedures were substitutes for better communication.

Shifted traditional operating paradigm of a utility in the UK, to meet challenging customer demands

The Journey and the Results

We designed and implemented a new investment management model, which would deliver a 15% savings in TOTEX and a 50% improvement in network performance while maintaining safety across the network. 

We established a culture of commitment in which long-lasting change was possible, allowing the company to change roles, processes, and practices to deliver the needed value to their customers. 

Through a new Value Model, managers were encouraged to prioritize work on the network which would return the highest value or decrease risk significantly. 

Front-line managers made offers to deliver work at a certain return by a certain date. Once the offer and investment was approved, they managed the on-time and on-budget delivery of their promise. 

This culture of completion generated close to £2 million in TOTEX savings with £7 million more projected for work in the following year. On top of this, our customer estimated the incentive value generated to exceed £100 million.