Enterprise organization design.
No two businesses compete the same way. We work with leadership to determine structure and the optimal degree of portfolio integration to turn your operating model into a competitive advantage.
Deciding, on purpose, how the company will run.
Every company has an operating model, whether it was designed or simply accumulated from years of historical decisions. Enterprise organization design replaces the accidental version with a deliberate one: a clear picture of how the company will deliver its strategy, including how power is divided among the major units, how work flows across them, and how decisions get made.
The work starts from strategy, not the org chart. We first help leaders agree on how integrated the portfolio should be and which few capabilities will set the company apart; those become the criteria every design option is tested against. Structure, governance, and decision rights follow, designed as one connected system.
When leadership teams bring us in
- A strategy shift has to become real. Divergent units need to operate as one global business, or the company needs to sell an integrated solution across what used to be separate product lines.
- The business needs a capability it doesn’t have. Building AI and data into how the company runs, or standing up a function that didn’t exist before.
- The matrix isn’t working. The primary organizing logic is unclear, or dual reporting arrived without the guardrails that let decisions get made.
- An acquisition, divestiture, or new venture. Integrating an acquired business, standing up a divested unit, or incubating something new inside the company.
- Leaders disagree about the role of the center. Corporate pulls toward integration, the businesses pull toward autonomy, and every initiative becomes a negotiation.
- Cost and complexity no longer earn their keep. Simplifying layered P&Ls and duplicated work through the operating model, rather than across-the-board cuts.
A design process built so the result sticks.
We use an end-to-end design process grounded in Jay Galbraith’s methodology, tailored to each company. The people closest to the work help shape the design along the way.
We agree on a clear problem to solve.
Enterprise design frameworks.
Frequently asked questions.
How long does the first phase of enterprise design take?
Typically about 12 weeks. The first phase takes the work through discovery and architecture: agreeing on the problem to solve and the capabilities that matter most, then defining the architecture of the new organization. We begin integration in phase one, and it continues in phase two alongside leadership and transition, paced to the business.
Who will actually do the work?
Senior practitioners, from start to finish. Organization design is all we do, and everyone on our team has held partner or senior manager roles at large consulting firms. The people you meet in the first conversation are the team in the room from diagnostic through implementation, with no pyramid of junior analysts learning on your budget. Our senior leaders helped develop the methodology that has become the standard in the field. Because our recommendations aren’t tied to selling technology platforms or outsourcing, they stay independent, and we stay with clients through execution, not just design.
Do you also assess our leaders?
We define the leadership roles and the principles and criteria for staffing them, but we don’t assess individuals. Good design depends on leaders speaking candidly about where decisions get stuck and where their own areas are weak, which they only do if the conversation isn’t about their jobs. Your talent team, or a specialist firm, leads the people decisions.