Operational Review
While a firm’s business evolves, growing, diversifying or even contracting in line with its strategy and the market, often the question arises whether its operations are evolving accordingly. This may be provoked by internal or external feedback on the quality and efficiency of delivering services and performing tasks or the awareness of systems, applications and other resources that can enable better and faster results. Alternatively, it may be management’s desire to simply validate that the firm’s operations adequately support the business and be made aware of potential improvements.
An “Operational Review” is intended to answer this question and is a full scope “audit” of a firm’s operations and its operational strategy and how that interacts with the firm’s overall strategy. The review is a holistic diagnostic of the health of the firm’s operations to determine if they are “fit for purpose” for the existing business and provides a stress test to determine if the operations are fit to support future growth or, in some cases, future contraction.
A key benefit of such a review is that it is an independent assessment of the Firms operations, avoiding preconceived notions or internal agendas about business operations and mitigating the influence of underlying internal agendas. That enhances its acceptance not only by management but by those impacted by recommendations.
The scope of the review would include the following areas:
- Finance
- Operations, Administration, Facilities Management
- Human Resources and Talent Management
- Technology
- Business Development, Marketing and Communications
- Compliance and client intake
- Financial Governance
- Knowledge management
Apart from documentary review, our procedures include consultation with management, key operational staff and users (through interviews and surveys). As a result of the review, Edge provides a detailed report of observations and recommendations and assistance with their implementation as an additional service if so desired.