During the instituional diagnostic, CDS conducts a thorough evaluation of the company’s overall situation, covering all areas of relevance, to mention purpose, strategy, operating model, organization, operations, management, people, governance, etc.

The institutional diagnostic has numerous benefits, mainly:

• A third-party, factual, and objective description and assessment of the organization’s internal situation
• A common and shared internal understanding of this prevailing situation
• The familiarization of the CDS team with the client’s current state, as well as the company’s key stakeholders [and vice-versa], allowing better collaboration during the next phases of work

CDS supports clients in devising the corporate strategy that best supports the company’s vision and objectives while meeting the requirements and challenges of the industry and leveraging its opportunities.

The developed corporate strategy is based on an in-depth analysis of the existing strategy, as well as the company’s internal and external environments, using various strategy analysis frameworks and proprietary tools.

CDS conducts in-depth industry analyses covering all aspects of the client industry using different models and proprietary tools.  

An industry analysis enables organizations to:

• Identify the opportunities and threats their business is facing
• Understand the industry attractiveness and anticipate its future trends and directions
• Understand their position relative to other players / competitors
• Adopt educated decision making and effective strategic planning

CDS reviews, challenges, and defines the business strategies that best position each of the client's lines of business while ensuring their full alignment with the company’s vision and objectives.

Consequently, CDS works with its clients to define the business plan that best supports and guides the newly designed strategies.

The developed business strategies are based on an in-depth analysis of the existing strategies, as well as the company’s internal and external environments, using various strategy analysis frameworks and proprietary tools.

CDS helps its clients challenge and formalize the company’s purpose covering:

• Vision: why the company exists, and what it aspires to be
• Mission: how will the company achieve its vision
• Values: the core corporate values that the company believes in and that are key to its development
• Corporate objectives, quantitative and qualitative

A clearly articulated purpose brings numerous benefits:

• The company’s senior management, as well as employees, are unified around a common purpose
• The values and culture that the shareholders / management wishes to embed are defined, communicated internally, and integrated in its corporate development plan
• A long-term outlook is preserved with clear view of the firm’s desired future and how it plans to achieve its objectives for the short to medium term

Corporate Governance
Based on the understanding of the corporate legacy and the corporate purpose and using international and local benchmarks and best practices, CDS works with the client to develop the company’s corporate governance, covering primarily:

• Board of Directors’ structure, composition and expected role (strategy formulation, monitoring, legal compliance, risk management, leadership succession planning, etc.)
• Role of Board members: Chairman, Executive Vice Chairman, Directors, etc.
• Board operating mechanisms and processes: meetings, minutes, meeting cycle, etc.
• Board Committees
• Board information system

Family Governance
Based on the understanding of the desired family and corporate legacies of the Family, CDS works with the relevant stakeholders to:

• Formalize the Family Charter, including but not limited to, the Family mission, objectives, and values, the Family policies (e.g. employment and ownership, resolution of disputes between family members, communication and disclosure, etc.) and the Family social responsibility statement
• Establish the family governance mechanisms, covering: Family governance bodies (e.g. Family Council, Family assembler, Family Office, etc.), Family Committees, and the interactions between the Family and the Business

Clearly defined family governance mechanisms are essential to ensure that the Family remains at the service of the business and that the increasing challenges and complexities the Family typically brings to a business are well managed and addressed.

CDS helps clients identify the most appropriate role and scope for their Corporate Center, and accordingly identify the functions / activities that should be centralized (shared) using various analytical tools.

For each candidate function / activity, a further analysis using all relevant parameters is done to define the optimal extent of centralization (i.e. to (1) fully centralize vs. (2) centralize – delocalize vs. (3) fully decentralize).

Numerous benefits can result from the establishment of a corporate center / shared services:

• Cost savings from economies of scale and the elimination of redundant work and infrastructure
• Higher quality and uniformity of service levels across the organization
• Higher productivity of resources delivering services
• Increased standardization, making reengineering initiatives easier to implement while promoting ongoing improvement
• Increased focus by the operating companies/business units on their core activities and areas of competence, letting a shared services central unit deal with non-core activities

CDS conducts in-depth analysis of the client’s overall organization, understands its strategic goals and objectives, and accordingly detail the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant to each level and part of the organization.

KPIs, including traditional financial metrics as well as strategic non-financial performance indicators, are defined in a way to allow periodic monitoring of the organization performance against the company’s goals and objectives.

A clear set of attributes is defined for each indicator (name, description, formula, data collection method, measurement frequency, etc.) to ensure accurate, timely, and efficient performance management acorss the organization.

CDS redefines clients’ organizational model to best serve the company’s operations while optimizing its cost structure.
Accordingly, CDS details the client’s organization structure and develop the corresponding titles, reporting lines, and job descriptions, including job purpose, roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and required skills, experience, and qualifications.

An organizational design is important to ensure that the structure is at the service of the company’s operations and that roles & responsibilities are optimally allocated and accountabilities are reinforced.

Based on a detailed identification of all performance indicators, financial and non-financial, CDS assists clients in defining the management dashboards for each level and part of the organization, including a comprehensive list of KPIs, as well as their respective targets based on which the organization performance can be assessed and benchmarked.

CDS works with the clients to define the dashboard production and distribution rules & guidelines which enable the top management to get sufficient update on the organization performance and ensure continuous efforts for performance enhancement.

CDS has developed extensive experience in designing optimized and implementable operating systems for clients’ core and support functions with the purpose to maximize consistency and efficiency across the organization.

Operating systems are developed based on CDS proprietary approach and using various inputs, including the company strategy and objectives, existing process maturity, the requirements of process clients, internal and external best practices, as well as the organization's IT & people constraints and capabilities.

Operating systems include, as applicable: principles, business policies, standard procedures presented in flow charts, standard forms, Key Performance Indicators and Service Level Agreements, as well as all automation and implementation requirements.

 

CDS assists its clients in developing detailed authority limits for all functions and processes, defined as RASCI (Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consultant, and Informed) matrices. 

A well-defined Authority Limits Matrix:

• Reinforces accountability within the organization
• Ensures more efficient and better decision making
• Benefits from the knowledge of specialized people at the organization
• Can potentially minimize the workload on managers
• Can potentially boost motivation and moral of subordinates as well as there sense of responsibility

CDS works with its clients to set up a cost optimization roadmap that captures all cost optimization opportunities and details the tasks and actions required to exploit them.

The roadmap is devised based on a thorough assessment of the general cost structure covering the company’s financial situation and value chain, as well as the detailed analysis of cost drivers and the identification and prioritization of cost optimization opportunities spanning from tactical to high-level strategic initiatives.

CDS provides its clients support in setting up a Project Management Office (PMO) responsible for the timely and successful implementation of the company’s internal projects, roadmaps, and/or initiatives, including all solutions designed by CDS.

As such, CDS defines the PMO’s operating processes and mechanisms of work, as well as its structure, reporting lines, and job descriptions, and assists the client in staffing it. 

At a first stage, CDS can lead the PMO on behalf of the client and gradually hand over its management to the concerned persons within the organization. This creates a momentum of change within the company and provides support, training, and coaching to the client on how to effectively manage a PMO.

CDS supports clients in formulating the company’s set of HR policies including the principles, rules, and guidelines based on which all HR processes should be defined.

CDS ensures that all proposed policies are:

• Compliant with the local labor law
• Aligned with the company’s objectives, values, and culture
• Protects the interests of the company while creating a competitive and healthy work environment
• Derived from best practices

CDS helps clients review, challenge, and design a customized compensation & benefits system that positions the company as an employer of choice capable or attracting and retaining high caliber employees. The newly designed system is based on internal and external best practices, market benchmarks, and CDS proprietary method, and takes into account the client organization’s maturity and financial capabilities, as well as employees’ needs and expectations.

CDS has developed extensive experience in developing clients’ HR processes and metrics including process charts supported by written standard procedures, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). 

The scope of HR ranges from operational to strategic processes.

CDS helps its clients put in place best practices for Talent Management to ensure staff development that meet both organizational and individual needs, as well as talent retention.

The developed Talent Management systems are adjusted to the client industry's requirements and the organization's maturity, capabilities, and constraints.

These systems cover: strategic employee planning, recruitment, training, performance management, career development, succession planning, compensation & benefits, etc.