Getting Started with CDG

A Situation Assessment is designed to unearth opportunities to improve profit. We begin by gauging a company's capabilities and competencies. Interviews with key staff reveal how broadly and well understood the company's strategy is. Specific organizational strengths and weaknesses are identified. Customer and product profiles are evaluated along with the company's marketing and risk management plans and practices. The opportunity assessment probes the degree and quality of cooperation and coordination between functional areas. The project focus can be on a particular area such as marketing, risk management or IT. Or the assignment can address a business unit or broader organization issues such as decision-making processes, responsibilities and accountabilities. Call us today to learn how we can make an impact on your bottom line.

Progressive companies are always striving to improve every aspect of their operations. They review "best practices" in both related and unrelated industries to determine how they can change the way they do business. This is known as benchmarking.

Best Practices Benchmarking extends the assessment to an external view. It delivers a qualitative and quantitative comparison to practices industry-wide and across industries which use the same capabilities. Detailed comparisons with peers recognized as world class including your toughest competitors provide a road map to making critical strategic choices. Clients are given a definition of what it means to be best in class and an implementation plan detailing how to achieve and measure progress.

CDG has extensive experience with best practices benchmarking. Our staff have managed a wide range of benchmarking projects as well as syndicated and proprietary research studies.

Alliances are one way in which companies are attacking new markets. They present both opportunity and danger. On the positive side an alliance can provide access to new customers and channels, speed to market, unique knowledge and experience, and scale and cost advantages. At the same time there are costs. Generally alliance partners share both the risks and the rewards.

Often partners fail to recognize how the relationship needs to be managed. We can assist in identifying and evaluating potential alliances including an assessment of partner compatibility, pitfalls to be avoided and ways to maximize the benefits of the alliance.

Outsourcing is another example of an alliance. Outsourcing represents a critical strategic choice for most financial institutions. Significant benefits can be gained by tapping into the scale advantages and capabilities of outsourcing vendors. Weighing the benefits and costs of outsourcing can be extremely difficult. 

Usually key operational resources are already fully utilized. It is often hard to be objective internally given any cultural bias an organization may have. We can facilitate your decision making by fully assessing your needs, providing an objective analysis of internal capabilities and highlighting the critical risks and trade-offs required with outsourcing.