Do you remember the first time you moved in with another person? Did you end up with double sets of coffee cups and cutlery, different chairs and two sofas? And what did you have to do? You had to compromise. Perhaps one sofa had to go or you ended up trading them both for a better model. Well, the business world isn’t that different.
Two years ago, Hoist Finance laid out our strategy of becoming the digital leader of the industry and to be the most effective and efficient operator. As part of the strategy, we also decided that our organization needed to be aligned with our ambitions. Rather than having autonomous markets in a holding structures, we embarked on a route where we wanted to be integrated rather than scattered, and harmonized rather than fragmented.
In most organizations, topics such as autonomy and control over resources are being discussed continuously. I am sure you have heard managers saying that “if I don’t control the resources I cannot do what’s required”.
In international organizations this is frequently accentuated. Within the country borders it is easy to see that sharing resources is a good thing in order to operate efficiently. However, when it comes to cross-border operations, it becomes much more difficult. Typically, you will see departments and roles being duplicated across markets and countries. This is particularly true for companies that have grown through acquisitions and where there was no coherent operating model in place from the start.
Our operating model was decided two years ago and we labelled it #OneHoist. We wanted to industrialize, standardize and remove duplications. We decided to develop once, and deploy. We wanted all our colleagues to think as if we were operating from one office address, from one office building. We decided not to let country borders come in the way, but rather find ways to share resources across markets. We decided to leverage the benefits of scale and skills.
Now, we have a shared service centre in Wroclaw with close to 100 employees covering several functions, and we have approximately 100 employees delivering back office support across borders.
Laying out the operating model isn’t so hard. Executing on it is the true challenge. Now we are ready to take our next step, we are #MovingIn.
We have high expectations when we are now moving in for real. We are letting go of remaining duplications and we are embracing the challenge of trusting colleagues to deliver across functions and markets. Our digital solutions are coming together so that we can deliver a consistent value proposition to our customers across markets. The principles in #OneHoist are now becoming a reality when we are letting go for real and moving in.
And I’m sure we won’t miss those extra coffee cups and the old sofa that was, truth be told, pretty worn out. Good riddance!
Klaus-Anders