In a series of short discussions, we will introduce you to the consultants from the Simplify Consulting team. Today we meet one of our lead consultants to find out more about them, their background and the work they are fulfilling at our busy consultancy.
Today’s spotlight is on Dom House Lead Consultant at Simplify Consulting. Dom started his career in back-office operations in pensions and retail investments before becoming a Business Analysis for several wealth companies and as an independent contractor. Dom joined the Simplify leadership team in 2020 following several stints working as a Simplify Associate.
What do you do at Simplify?
As one of the Lead Consultants at Simplify, my main role is to lead client engagements, whether that be as part of a wider change initiative, or on a specific piece of work. It’s important for me to work with the client and understand what problem or gap they have that we can help them with. Whether that is leading or managing change, augmenting their current resource, or using our skills and expertise to enhance their business or proposition. Especially when working with new clients, the key for me is ensuring we build confidence as early as possible so that there’s a real trust that we can deliver for them.
What’s a common challenge that you deal with when working on engagements?
One thing that I find coming up repeatedly with our client’s is they don’t have a good understanding of their current state. It’s not uncommon that back-office operations teams aren’t able to provide a list or taxonomy of their process flows. It might seem like something that every business should have to hand, and that probably should be the case. But it’s understandable as businesses evolves, projects come and go, that it’s hard to point to a particular document which gives a complete view of the business operations.
On one engagement earlier this year we worked with the client to define their list of processes. As part of this exercise, we were also able to compare the information we extracted from the client with our capability model, SimplifyDNA. By comparing to what we would expect a similar business to have in terms of teams and operating model, services, and processes we were able to get to the answer sooner. It enabled us to map their current processes using our in-house process flows as a starting point. Our client didn’t have existing process flows, so we were able to quickly get to the current state and identify process improvement opportunities. As a result, not only did the client get their process flows mapped, but we were also able to recommend improvements that they could take forward into future projects and change initiatives.
What are the values that drive you?
The enjoyment I get from my work comes from two directions. I really enjoy solving problems, and ultimately that’s what we do on behalf of our clients. Whether that’s working out how to get from Point A to Point B, or working out what improvements they can, and more importantly they should make. It’s gives me huge satisfaction to solve these problems in and of themselves. The second point, and one that’s linked to the first, is that I get a lot of satisfaction delivering benefits to our clients and their business leaders. The key here is ensuring we are delivering what the business needs, whether that’s product and proposition improvements, system enhancements, or a more efficient operating structure and processes. It’s great to hear back from our clients at the end of an engagement that we’ve delivered what they were looking, even sometimes when they didn’t know themselves what they needed at the outset.
And finally, what’s your passion outside of work?
My main interests are all sports related. I’m just about managing to get round the football field on a Sunday morning, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. I enjoy playing golf when I can, so the Simplify Charity Golf Day is one day I look forward to during the year, as it combines playing with raising money for some great causes. After the last couple of years, I’m finding myself with more and more desire to get out and get back to being active, which is probably why I’ve also signed up to climb Mount Kilimanjaro next year. This will be a huge challenge for me, and hopefully a brilliant experience.
Stay tuned for more insight to the Simplify team.
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Practitioners, Proportionate, Professional. Simplify Consulting. It’s what we do.
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