“We now spend the vast majority of our board meeting on strategy and value-creation.”
~ Graham Donoghue, CEO
The Challenge — board papers to support growth
Sykes Cottages is experiencing an exciting period of growth and directors wanted their board materials to reflect their focus on value creation. They were looking for more forward-looking and strategic papers and to provide report writers with the tools to write papers that will support their rapid growth.
The Solution — dashboard, reports and process
We worked with the executive team to develop and embed:
- A dashboard that reflects value drivers: we ran a workshop with Sykes Cottages’ executive team to create a dashboard that highlights the priority outcome measures and the drivers of those outcomes. Management can now see more easily where value is being created, the status of strategic projects and the levers they can pull to influence growth.
- Best practice board reports: we provided access to Write, our reporting toolkit, to help report authors write high quality papers quickly and easily. This was supported by a workshop for report authors on how to structure their thinking and write in a journalistic style which cuts through jargon.
- Secure and efficient process: we introduced Read and Manage, our digital board portal and pack builder, to create time efficiencies and provide access to board materials in a secure and user-friendly way. As a progressive technology company, Sykes Cottages was delighted to update their board reporting process with our market-leading digital platform.
“The effect on the process of writing, reviewing and refining reports has been life-changing.”
~ Graham Donoghue, CEO
The Outcome — more effective board meetings
Sykes Cottages reported three key areas of impact:
- Effective meetings: directors now spend the majority of their board meetings discussing the future of their company and initiatives to stimulate growth. They have restructured their board agenda to cover strategic topics first and this ensures value-creating topics are a priority.
- Insightful papers: papers are higher quality and draw out the key issues upfront. This has enabled the board to get to the crux of matters straight away, address issues earlier and adjust plans accordingly to maximise growth.
- Time saving: the production of the board pack now takes a fraction of the time. Report authors spend less time re-drafting papers which they re-direct towards the value-creating activities of their day jobs.
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