People & Culture
Delivering radical business success by building organizational culture.
At A Glance
United Alliance is a mission-driven company that collaborates with similarly purpose-oriented organizations. They were hired by a client with a vision to grow their business substantially, aiming to quadruple in size to support their global mission of providing clean drinking water. United Alliance's task was to create a long-term strategy to help this client's department achieve the vision. While the focus was on strategy, United Alliance acknowledged the crucial role of the team, emphasizing that organizational culture and employee engagement are key to achieving business goals and ensuring success.
The Situation:
Our client had clear business objectives, targets, a strong brand, and a company mission; however, as strong and as clear as these were, they did not have a clear and thriving internal organizational culture.
The Ask
United Alliance was hired to develop and lead a Supply Chain organization in developing its global strategy to enable the company’s vision. (Note: Supply Chain represented 80% of the company’s revenue.)
The Solution:
United Alliance assessed all aspects of the business during our discovery process. We uncovered that the people within the business did not feel a sense of community. The company has a phenomenal external brand presence yet the internal focus on the employee experience was lacking. It would be difficult to accomplish the company’s desired performance if the people were not committed. We brought an emphasis on the people and ensure they can readily identify:
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They mattered.
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How their contributions impacted the business.
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The Purpose and role of Supply Chain through the vision and mission.
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Skills and competencies required for the team's success utilizing application-based training.
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Clear career path by developing their succession planning process and utilizing the Competency Matrix.
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Emphasis on Human Capital Planning by creating a Future Organizational Design and scaling of the team.
Real Impact
Gross Margin (GM) Improvement
We expanded the team to a global organization (vs. local) and developed a culture of significance, collaboration, and transparency, resulting in a 24% gross margin improvement.
Positive Global Impact
Supply Chain became the hub of innovation, and the team could directly see how they salvaged the company’s mission. After profitability eroded in the previous year, we were able to return the company to profitability to fund their donations (delivering clean drinking water).
Employee Motivation and Growth
Salvaged the company’s finances and grew the team with global and regional leadership, resulting in several supply chain team member promotions (4 of 6 team members promoted). Supply Chain influenced company-wide initiatives (e.g., value creation and business case prioritization) to expand the impact and success across the business.