A transport company with more than 4,000 collaborators was preparing for an aggressive growth plan. To begin, it redesigned its organizational structure and identified opportunities to improve efficiency which ensured its profitability during the expansion.
Context
A leading transport company was implementing an aggressive expansion plan, not only of its geographic scope and the size of its fleet but also the incorporation of new technologies. In addition, it recognized situations within its businesses which required the development of new skills within the team in order to develop them properly.
Finally, operating margins were falling, making it necessary to tackle opportunities to improve efficiency in order to ensure the company’s profitability.
In the face of these challenges, the company turned to Matrix Consulting in order to prepare its organization.
Opportunities detected
Matrix began with a diagnosis which allowed it to understand the business’s current situation and its alignment with future challenges. The work identified a number of opportunities:
The organizational structure was complex and not consistent with its strategy.
The organizational model did not reflect the range of activities that the company undertook. Passenger transport was just one service among many (payment methods, property development and expansion projects).
In organizational terms, the company had a large number of managers in comparison with international industry benchmarks.
Proposed actions
Matrix’s first proposal was to redesign the organization structure of the company’s senior management, simplifying the system of reporting to the general manager, and restructuring management by business unit. Corporate governance was redesigned, reducing the number of committees, limiting the number of decisions to be taken and the number of participants required in each committee.
Meanwhile, it was proposed that the maintenance strategy, processes and structure be adjusted with a focus on standardizing criteria and a management model for each of the company’s principle assets. Finally, the operations structure was made more agile by merging sub-departments, reducing absenteeism among frontline staff and flexibilizing the assignation of resources between teams.
Impact
Through the application of the plan, the company restructured its organization system by business unit, assuring sustainability in time without increasing staffing costs. The new governance system freed up 7% of the working hours of the company’s top executives.
In addition, a roadmap of the main activities, targets and achievements was created to adjust the maintenance strategy, processes and management model and capture opportunities to improve the efficiency of is operations.
