ShiftIN is aptly named – their objective is to support businesses make a shift from within. Roberto Wyszkowski has seen a number of shifts in the C-suite. He lets us know what shifts are coming, and how these changes will impact businesses in the region.
ShiftIN Partners is a strategy management consulting firm focused on helping clients manage strategy and innovation programmes that enable the organisations to achieve their goals. ShiftIN Partners has Offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh and Lisbon. CFO Middle East sat down with Roberto Wyszkowski, Co-founder and Partner at ShiftIN to discuss what shifts the company is seeing in the C-suite.
What are the objectives of ShiftIN and how have you seen them change?
Our focus is on strategic execution. The company was founded in the UAE. We are not only involved in consulting, but also in solutions and training. We have trained around 700 people in the region already. We focus on the C-level student – presidents of companies, board members etc. The company was established to work in the GCC, but through our customers, we now work outside the GCC.
In that you work often with CFOs, can you tell us how you have seen the role of the CFO change?
We see more and more collaboration between business strategy and financial planning in an organisation. It is key for the CFO to be part of the business strategy these days. They aren’t just a part of carrying out the business objectives, they are part of planning those objectives.
How far is the reach of ShiftIN – do you work in all sectors?
I like to say that we are small but brave. We are a small outfit with a very big network of partners around the world. If we go to a sector and don’t have that particular expertise, we reach out to our friends and partners. The world is our limit, we just want to be where we can support our customers. We, as a company, are challenge driven.
What are you seeing in the region, as far as strategic planning?
We recently released the results of a survey of 200 organisations from the GCC. The State of Strategy Execution – GCC Edition reflects research that was conducted during 2014 and drew from both government organisations and private companies from multiple sectors. One of the results from the survey revealed that more than 80 percent of the organisations feel that they have a strong level of strategic clarity. Additionally, 70 percent believe they have a robust strategic plan in place to guide their organisations. However, only 40 percent of organisations reported that their strategic plans are not delivering the expected results.
What are people missing? Why aren’t they hitting the mark when it comes to execution?
This gap between strategic definition and execution can be attributed to multiple factors. Amongst these, the SOSE survey identifies that a large number of organisations – almost half – are not developing their key staff’s skills and capabilities – a major area opportunity for improvement.
Additionally, the survey has found that one of the main barriers for strategy to succeed is the lack of proper resources. 62 percent of organisations consider that their strategic projects are not staffed with the right people, while 30 percent of the organisations identified misallocation of budget as an issue for successfully executing the strategy.
What can be done to improve the rate of execution and results?
Organisations need to define their enablers and key partners. This is what ShiftIN does – we and are partners lead business transformations, from full-fledged overhauls to discrete initiatives. We offer innovation framework development, idea generation workshop and tools, go to market acceleration programmes and innovation management certificate courses.
