Welcome to Acuity Global Development
As from June 2014 Acuity Coaching has formalized the expansion of its business and has positioned itself in some of its key markets, as Acuity Global Development or AGD.
This move recognizes the journey that Acuity has taken in enabling large organizations to improve performance by accelerating both Organizational and People Effectiveness in a systematic way. In presenting AGD this enables us to present all our existing capabilities in a coherent package.
Acuity Coaching already has established a strong track record of success in the world of Organizational and People Effectiveness:
- A global capability comprising a tried and tested consultancy and coaching network, delivering the full range of requirements, mission critical to the success of businesses across all industry sectors and geographies.
- Local and regionally based, account management and back-office functions to deliver large complex managed service solutions.
To introduce the thinking behind this move we interviewed our Chief Executive, Simon Coops:
Why are you formally introducing Acuity Global Development now?
When we launched Acuity Coaching it was always thought that we would be offering OE solutions based on coaching. We also knew that when we showed how we could support organizational transformation through 1:1 and group interventions we would be asked by our clients to support them more broadly on the Change, Performance, Talent & Executive Development fronts.
This has already happened so when we expanded the Company into the North American market, we decided it was a great opportunity to formally present a brand which would reflect the reality of what we deliver.
Why open up in North America now?
We have been delivering globally for many years now and North America has always been a large market for Acuity. Our US and Canadian based clients told us that they would prefer if we had more local representation so we have taken the step of hiring a Global Business Development Director based in the US. He will focus initially on building our presence in this key market. We already have a well-developed network which includes the capabilities required to deliver the broader proposition so it was an obvious thing to do.
These services are already available globally through Acuity Coaching – the only thing we are changing at this stage is the brand in North America.
What will this mean to Acuity Coaching's existing clients?
Apart from more local contacts and capability in the North American market plus an even larger network for us to draw on, there will be no change. We do have additional diagnostic, assessment and consulting capability as part of the core team now so don't be surprised if we want to talk to you about a broader range of services!
What will Acuity Global Development be offering clients?
We support our clients in developing Organizational and People Effectiveness. This involves taking an integrated approach that connects and develops an organization's range of processes, systems and people to deliver both the strategic and the operational agendas (see the full diagram). We work in partnership with our clients to define position and drive development effectively by addressing the right questions in the right organizational context.
What does this look like in practice?
We will be designing and delivering both strategic and operational interventions, assisting our clients in tracking what works and what needs to change at an individual, team and organizational level. We then work with our clients to equip them with the tools and techniques to understand, buy-in to, role model and to lead in the most highly effective ways.
What are AGD's sweet spots in Organizational Effectiveness (OE)?
We have a very broad capability and our focus is on Change Management, Talent Development, Communications and Executive Development. Typical interventions would be:
- Working with a senior leadership team to enable them to role model leadership as it is defined and required by the organization.
- Communication throughout the business of a consistent message about key business strategy and priorities.
- Engagement of senior leaders, ensuring a clear focus around common issues and business imperatives to deliver improved employee engagement and business performance.
- Enabling the workforce to operate across different geographies and in different cultures.
- Ensuring accountability for performance at all levels of the business.
- Design and delivery of high impact Leadership Development Programs.
- Assessing and developing high potential talent.
- Strategies and plans to enhance the talent retention, development pipeline and senior level succession.
- Provide Acuity Coaching individual and team coaching expertise with a track record of delivering highly effective individual and team coaching across all industries and geographies.
Where does AGD fit into the market?
Our goal is to work primarily with large corporate clients. We anticipate that although we will be available to support some clients in the development of business strategy our main thrust will be turning strategy into effective OE actions. We bring with us a strong focus on organizational culture as this is always, in our experience, a key enabler of business strategy.
Acuity brought agility and rapid response to the coaching market and we will maintain this flexibility and sense of urgency with AGD. We also believe strongly in constantly monitoring activity and results, capturing themes and presenting these to our clients with our organizational and people analysis and recommendations to clients.
In this way we will occupy a unique space in the market with global capability, flexibility to support our clients' preferred approaches and a relentless focus on results. We will not be content to just re-define your problems for you or shovel off-the-shelf workshops and standard offerings and methodologies at you – we will work with our clients to provide the optimum solution that really has an impact and really makes a difference in bottom-line people and organizational performance.
