Organisational complexity by sector: articles grouped by the kind of organisation they describe, from professional services to multi-site and asset-intensive operations.
Organisational challenges do not exist independently of the environments in which businesses operate. A firm whose value depends on the expertise of its people encounters growth differently from one whose value is tied to physical assets and long production cycles.
Three groupings are used here, organised by organisational pattern rather than by industry label — because businesses that look unrelated often face near-identical coordination problems.
Each grouping describes how the same coordination problems present in a different organisational environment.
Organisations whose value depends on the expertise of their people — professional services,…
Organisations delivering a consistent standard across many locations.
Organisations whose value is tied to physical assets and long production cycles — real estate…
Each sector has a dedicated page that brings together the Perspectives on how that kind of organisation experiences growth, coordination and consistency.
Businesses serving clients and candidates through the same consultants.
Companies whose growth outruns the processes built for the last stage.
Across the seven sectors the same four organisational questions return, each in a different form.
Authority that was clear in a small organisation becomes unclear as people, sites and functions are added.
A standard written at the centre is interpreted by each team and site that applies it.
Leadership’s picture of the organisation is increasingly built from summaries rather than sight.
The measures that are easiest to see tend to shape behaviour, whether or not they capture what matters.
How these questions are being read in the four markets we publish for.
By organisational pattern rather than industry label. There are three groupings and, within them, seven industry pages.
Dedicated pages cover sectors where there is a body of Perspectives. The Other Sectors page lists further industries and the closest match for each.
No. The pages organise Perspectives. Scenarios are invented composites and describe no actual organisation.
The patterns recur widely. Start with the grouping closest to how your organisation works, or with the Perspectives hubs, which are organised by business challenge.
Most are not. Four market pages — London, Zurich, Dubai and Singapore — collect those that look at how the questions present in a particular place.
Yes. Services can be delivered remotely, and we accept requests from organisations wherever they are located.
— Sull, Homkes & Sull, Harvard Business Review, 2015 — a study of more than 250 companies.
Research consistently finds that the harder problem is not setting direction but coordinating across units that each behave sensibly on their own. The failure is rarely in any single function. It is in what happens between them.
Widely repeated failure statistics in this field — including the frequently quoted claim that 70% of strategy initiatives fail — cannot be traced to published methodology. We prefer to cite what can be checked.
Services can be delivered remotely, and we accept requests from organisations wherever they are located.
