Member Article

Columbus teams up with Olympian to achieve 100% retention levels

An international consultancy company has teamed up with a gold medal winning Olympian and announced an aspirational goal to achieve 100 per cent staff and client retention, as it continues its journey of ambitious year on year growth.

The impressive target has been set by Columbus, borne out of a company-wide initiative to challenge company processes and behaviours in order to drive even further growth and continue to work more strategically alongside its customers. The entire company has embarked on Will It Make the Boat Go Faster (WIMTBGF), a performance improvement programme launched by Olympic Gold medal rower Ben Hunt-Davis. Managing Director Mary Hunter said that the results are already visible, just a few months into the initiative.

“Columbus has seen year on year growth for over 15 years now and I wanted a programme that help me and the team to work smarter, not harder. We strongly believe that a focus on performance, small step changes in how we work, and constantly challenging ourselves, will ultimately lead to the desired results; 100% employee and client retention and continued growth following on,” she said. “Already, just weeks into the Will It Make the Boat Go Faster programme, we have seen a change in the Columbus team. Across the board we are challenging more of our own processes and behaviours with one question in mind: will it get us closer to our ‘Crazy Goal’?”

The WIMTBGF programme teaches businesses how to use simple, consistent everyday techniques, leading to measurable improvement and habitual excellence, based on the novel approach Ben Hunt-Davis took with his training when preparing to win Olympic Gold in 2000. And just like the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions that Columbus provides to manufacturing, distribution, and retail businesses across the globe, the entire programme is all about implementing successful change management strategies in order to achieve its aspirational goal.

Mary Hunter explained: “Just like the success of an ERP implementation can depend on how well an organisation reacts and responds to change, our internal initiative is about delivering continual improvement and adding more value for our customers and employees. With everything we do we are looking at the long term aspiration. Every conversation we have with a customer is part of a long term strategy to deliver positive improvement to their business, and how we deliver clearly affects this long term goal of customer retention.

“Just like when we appoint champions for ERP implementation, to encourage and drive change throughout the business, we have our own change champions who come from all levels and departments of the business, helping to spread and support the message of positive change.”

Columbus is a company that has grown significantly over the last few years, following an ambitious organic and acquisition strategy and entering multiple new markets. Last year the global company enjoyed an increase of 7.5% in overall revenue from the first half of 2014, and recorded a significant improvement in net results of 184%.

As part of its aspirational goal to achieve 100% staff and client retention, Columbus has already implemented a number of initiatives across the organisation. The recent launch of its Columbus360 user group has given customers a further opportunity to share their ERP experiences and collaborate in order to achieve greater value from their ERP investment. The company also launched its employee social engagement programme last year, which encourages employees at all levels of the business to share their ideas on how the global group can achieve success for both customers and the company, with the best ideas being presented to senior management to be evaluated further.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Columbus .