Safeguarding the 'Risk to the Rest' when landing that North Star
At TUNDRA, two of our values are authenticity and integrity. We put this lens on all we do, how we show up and also the way we talk.
One of the big risks that consultants don’t talk honestly enough about is ‘the risk to the rest’ when they secure a massive piece of work.
Winning a significant client – one that accelerates your revenue, your team’s focus, and signals to the market what you’re made of, also carries with it an increased risk profile, relationship challenge, and resourcing constraint for all those outside of the account (be it staff or clients).
There’s also risk in talking about it – which is why many don’t – as it can be seen as a sign of distraction and a dilution of service to your remaining network.
But we are talking about it because the conversation is honest, it’s real, and it’s a place we’ve been recently.
In July, TUNDRA was awarded the contract to support South32 with the sale of its global aluminium assets to Alcoa – one of the largest M&A transactions in WA since the demerger of BHP.
The opportunity is significant, the work substantial, and the optics demonstrative of a massive vote of confidence for what TUNDRA is capable of. But the honest truth? The risk of a huge client win, with a significant impact on revenue, requirement of available staff, and allocation of business focus, sees the rest of the business competing for the spotlight.
Where so many have fallen short before, and where we insist we will not, is that the smaller, less demanding clients don’t get the service they deserve; that the new business pipeline is put on the backburner because the immediate 12 months are covered, and that quite simply, all our eggs are in one basket.
Winning these massive accounts is one thing but having a dedicated focus on what the ‘Risk to the Rest’ is and how to mitigate that, is where the real value lies.
Derisking the rest…
There are many moments over the years where TUNDRA’s growth has outpaced our business – be that due to client wins, staff hiring or simply the speed of which the market has demanded our business grow. But the value in experiencing this early on is that we have recognised the need to invest in ways to ensure scale, security and service remains front of centre despite the fluidity of the pipeline.
In 2023, TUNDRA implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to help us identify, articulate and pursue our 10-year vision in 1-, 3-and 10-year increments. This discipline has not only shaped how we build the business but has enabled us to absorb projects like South32’s whilst growing the rest of the business concurrently. This hasn’t always been easy, but it has led us to these moments, largely underpinned by some key disciplines:
- Treating the size of the win as a reason to tighten our discipline
- Looking at capacity planning deliberately rather than absorbing it reactively
- Accelerating business development regardless of how full the pipeline looks
- Remaining steadfast in how our clients are serviced outside of the win – ensuring they aren’t paying the price for TUNDRA’s success
- Hiring for the gaps, not deploying all TUNDRA’s talent on the newest opportunity
- And staying honest in our conversations with clients, with the team and with ourselves
These principles have been just as applicable to the way we service big accounts as they are to the way we treat our own business (and other clients)..
So, whilst this article might sound like a bunch of consultants self-flagellating about winning some big work, it’s more a cautionary tale about the discipline in derisking the business when big work is won. It’s about how a business treats itself under pressure – whether it protects its own discipline when it would be easiest not to – and how this behaviour signals to clients how they will be treated themselves.
At TUNDRA, risk isn’t something that is treated retrospectively – it’s managed in the everyday decisions about where attention goes and how this is a mirror to those wanting to engage with us. It’s about holding ourselves account to the same discipline that we prescribe to our clients, because if client’s give us that vote of confidence that we’re capable of so much, then we owe that to ourselves and others to deliver that same value.
Want to chat about how discipline can set your business up for success?