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Clearwater Advantage

Innovative support to evolving business

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About

Background

Clearwater Advantage was founded by Alasdair Mackay as a different approach to supporting growing businesses. After a career as a professional engineer with a focus on operations and management, initially in the MOD and more recently in industry and consultancy, he has direct experience of what makes a business grow – from the high level vision and strategy to the close-in detail of process improvement needed to deliver results and shareholder value and from cross-department cooperation to real partnership with customers and suppliers. He has worked in and supported major multi-national businesses and SMEs: some growing successfully, some wanting to grow more and some going through a turnaround from decline back into growth. He is inspired by SMEs that are ambitious and have something different to offer and enthusiastic about bringing innovation into businesses that are willing to step up a level.

His experience covers core management and strategy roles as well as technical operations, product development, process improvement, supply chain management and key customer relations; always underpinned by a passion for technology and its application to real world problems. Clearwater Advantage aims to bring this experience to bear in supporting high-energy, high-potential, ambitious businesses as they take on the challenges of increased scale and complexity that growth brings.

Innovation, a spirit of challenging the status quo and a sense of adventure are at the heart of everything we do.

Approach

As a business grows there are many sources of external support available, from Government sponsored advisors and Chambers of Commerce to business coaches and outsourcing consultants. The focus tends to be on removing the external barriers to growth by providing access to funding and new markets or by providing specialist advice in areas such as HR, finance and supply chain that take on a higher profile as a business grows and consume more of business leaders’ time. At Clearwater Advantage we believe that removing these barriers is necessary to enable growth, but not sufficient. Our focus is on driving growth from within a business so that the opportunities created by removing barriers are exploited quickly, effectively and sustainably. We build a growth model for each client based on 3 core areas:

  • Designing a strategy that enshrines the core strengths of the business, encompasses all functions, is properly resourced and communicating this effectively across the enterprise.
  • Improving internal performance by developing leadership and management skills, modernising and optimising processes and driving cross-department cooperation.
  • Putting a deep understanding of the customer at the centre of the model, so that their needs are translated into tangible requirements understood by all, to inform the strategy and drive performance.

For more information or for an initial discussion contact us.

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Customers
  • Understanding customers’ needs and wants (and the difference between them).
  • Translating these into properly scoped requirements to be understood by the business and using these to inform product strategy.
  • Shaping customers’ requirements and expectations.
  • Identifying the joint exploitation path for the business and its customers and turning this into an ongoing partnership leading to repeat business
Performance

Leadership & Management:

  • Identifying strengths and weaknesses of the leadership and management team.
  • Focusing senior staff on where they must concentrate effort to have the greatest effect on the business.
  • Supporting all managers in introducing appropriate levels of delegation and accountability.

Operations:

  • Designing and implementing process improvement.
  • Introducing project management methodology and other processes, adopting and adapting an appropriate degree of formalised process to fit the business and environment.
  • Incorporating commercial rigour into all stages of operational decision-making and ensuring alignment with the business strategy.

Cross-department organisation and cooperation:

  • Identifying and addressing areas of friction.
  • Designing collaborative processes to align activity with strategy.
  • Forming multi-functional integrated teams.
Strategy
  • Identifying the core strengths of the business, how these relate to the target market and focusing on the key elements to create and maintain a competitive advantage.
  • Cascading the high-level business strategy into critical activity for technical and product strategy and communicating this to all areas of the business, with clear targets and metrics.
  • Harnessing technical innovation to drive product development and the practical application of technology solutions to real world problems.
  • Generating business cases to justify investment in R&D activity and focus effort on realising benefits.
  • Practical implementation of strategy and plans, maintaining focus and momentum to turn the vision into actions that deliver tangible results.