Intercompany transfer à la Steinbeis
Steinbeis Consulting Group (SCG) Personal is an alliance of experienced experts from different Steinbeis Enterprises that deals with the topics of organizational development, personnel development, and competence management, spanning a wide portfolio of services. Its approach is to pool existing competence and offer clients an individual, networked, and holistic range of consulting services in the field of personnel and HR management.
SCG Personal is thus the answer to changes in customer requirements resulting from the continual digital transformation process in the economy, businesses, and society in general – a trend that is also mirrored in business and strategy consulting. Consulting topics such as Work Environment 4.0, agile organizations, process innovations, demographic change, and the shortage of skilled workers require networked expertise, holistic solutions, and interdisciplinary project delivery – something that can be offered by SCG by bringing together different kinds of experts. Digital instruments and tools required for the consulting process are also becoming increasingly important. As a result, SCG Personal uses a selection of the very latest software instruments of business analysis and evaluation in order to offer clients consulting services that are in tune with modern business and address specific issues. The tools that are used are developed and updated in collaboration with universities and enterprises from the Steinbeis Network. This ensures they continuously match the very latest scientific research in pertinent fields of expertise and are kept up to date.
SCG thrives on the exchange of ideas, and for around a year there have been regular quarterly group meetings and continual coordination between the different partners in the group. This merges the knowledge of each partner into overall service competence, allowing each area of competence to develop into valuable, irreplaceable, and individual points of differentiation that are difficult to copy, especially for competitors such as other consultants outside the Steinbeis organization. People in business face a number of challenges and problems, especially when managers and the co-workers are overloaded by work. It’s at times like this that the way forward is to optimize processes, innovate, and meet increasingly rapid changes face-on. To remain efficient and powerful as a commercial organization, timely changes can bring tremendous competitive advantage to a company. SCG Personal not only provides its customers with food for thought and tools that are tailored to business practice, it also provides firms with tangible support – from the development of solutions to effective implementation, and the long-term application of innovative organizational instruments. To do this, individual project teams are formed within the SCG, supplemented where necessary by other partners from the Steinbeis Network in order to guarantee access to comprehensive advisory services and implementation instruments.
Conversely, the increasing importance of digital skills in the age of Industry 4.0 means that the job profiles and qualification requirements of HR consultants are also changing. Aside from fulfilling a company’s legal obligations, important goals include raising levels of digital competence in Work Environment 4.0, improving corresponding levels of performance and productivity, and enhancing people’s ability to cope with work. Recent studies in the field of HR monitoring have looked at the return on investment of personnel costs. They show that companies with advanced talent management systems generate 18% higher profits than their competitors. They sometimes also have higher sales revenues, productivity levels, and return on equity. These key outcomes have a domino effect on collaborative group activities and the iterative development of shared tools and services.
The experts at SCG Personal provide access to a specific set of tools that help lighten the load of overworked SMEs as a part of Steinbeis advisory services. Consulting is based on the current business model of the sharing economy, a term which describes a shift toward “using, not owning” and “sharing, not having.” This approach saves companies money and provides much-appreciated relief for managers. For example, instead of paying annual license fees for job applicant and talent management software, companies have access to a demand-competence tool – a solution that is based on solving bottleneck problems. This successfully transfers theory into practice in keeping with Steinbeis principles. The Steinbeis experts also develop company-specific solutions in areas such as specialist staff retention, competence management, onboarding, demographic- compatible HR management, corporate succession, management training, business coaching, cultures of communication, conflict resolution, risk assessment in the field of psychological strain, change processes, and team-building. By drawing on evaluations, recommendations, and front-line support at the place of business, sustainable productivity enhancements are made, especially through making structural and organizational changes and expanding the competence of workers. The result is robust and efficient business development.
The current status of SCG Personal as a networking project is shaped by the initial stages of concept development. The group has successfully worked up a joint, collaborative, and networked portfolio of services in three areas: enhancing work flexibility, human resources empowerment, and required competence tool. These are now ready for the group to enter the market together for the first time. The consultants started by taking part in a speed dating event at the Steinbeis Consulting Day on June 27, 2018 (see pages 36/37). The idea was to work in parallel on a common acquisition strategy so that consultants could not only work on individual or bilateral projects, but also acquire and work on larger projects by involving several other members of SCG. Detailed discussion about their own and shared personnel services certainly provided the consultants with some important insights, and SCG members continue to invest in collaboration between the consulting centers. Sharing topics is constructive and in the long term, collaboration will add value.
Developing services together to address the areas of enhancing work flexibility and human resources empowerment, and developing and testing the required competence tool together, have already resulted in live implementation and delivered benefit. One example of a project involved change processes during the introduction of lean management at a traditional company. Another project involved the integration of a startup into corporate structures. Building on the individual personality and patterns of requirements of the people involved, managers undergoing a Human Resources Empowerment Program were enabled to engage in effective change communication to accompany change processes. This had become necessary for operational reasons, and it was important than no one left the company and all employees felt motivated enough to carry out the necessary changes within the time allocated to the task. Given the shortage of skilled works, “staying on board” aspects are particularly important for top performers involved in change processes.
Contact
Dr. Regina Brauchler
Dr. Regina Brauchler is the director of the Steinbeis Consulting Center Demographics-based HR Managemen, which offers clients strategies for retaining skilled workers, competence evaluations for assessing HR development requirements, aptitude testing (including requirement and capability comparisons for optimizing personnel deployment), profiling, and talent management in personnel recruiting.
Günther Luber
Günther Luber is a project manager at the Steinbeis Consulting Center Safeguarding Companie. The services offered by the Steinbeis Enterprise comprise stock-taking exercises with the aim of safeguarding the long-term viability of companies for the sake of employees, enterprises, and organizations, one-on-one coaching for business leaders, managers, and workers, and the Steinbeis Enterprise Competence Check.
www.langfristige-unternehmenssicherung.de .
Dr. Michael Ortiz
Dr. Michael Ortiz gained a PhD at the University of Mannheim in the field of comparative innovation systems research. Since 2013, Ortiz has been a project manager based at Steinbeis headquarters in Stuttgart, working in business and strategy consulting, transfer management, business competence analysis, the setting up and supervision of Steinbeis Enterprises, digital transformation, and a variety of studies and evaluations.
www.steinbeis-consulting-personal.de