Case Study – Grow Management Consultants

Overview
Grow Management Consultants is a small management consultancy business specialising in
leadership development services. The company offers a range of services to assist companies to
assess leadership behaviour of existing managers and performance metrics. They also design and
implement customised leadership programs based on the assessment. Services are offered Australia-
wide.
The company employs a CEO, General Manager (you), 2 Principal Consultants (who are also
Directors), 1 Senior Consultant, an Administration Officer and Receptionist.
Over the last two years, the company has diversified, and now a number of additional services. The
latest offering are a series of ebooks, plus policies and procedures that can be used by clients to
ensure they operate effectively.
As the General Manager for the company, you have been tasked with a review of the organisation’s
digital strategy.
You have the following information to help you with this task:
 The company’s online presence is excellent with a good website and strong digital marketing
especially through LinkedIn.
 Ordering of products including the ebook and policies and procedures occurs as follows:
o Customer sends an email with their order details

o They are sent an invoice and payment is made via bank transfer

o Once they pay their files are delivered via a Dropbox link

 Customer payments are by bank transfer only.

 Customer information is in the form of emails stored in the administration officer’s email.
 File storage is via Dropbox.
 All internal communication is via email.
 The company is growing rapidly and the intention is to employ four further staff members within
the next six months.
 Professional development workshops were previously held face to face but due to COVID-19
have stopped for the time being.
The CEO would also like you to carefully review the Strategic Plan to identify opportunities for digital
technology. He would also like you to conduct research on the latest digital technology that could
assist with any of the above issues.
He would also like you to conduct a digital audit as per the questions here:
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/it/digital-strategy/conducting-audit
He has also flagged that where you are unsure of the answer to any questions based on the
information that you have, you should flag this as an issue for investigation.

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 Strategic
Plan

2020 – 2024

Grow
Management
Consultants
Welcome
Welcome to the Strategic Plan for Grow Management Consultants.
This document sets out our vision for the next three years and how we hope to achieve it.
We hope you enjoy reading this document.
Paul Burns
CEO
Grow Management Consultants

Executive Summary
Established in 2010, Grow Management Consultants is a management consultancy company
specialising in providing services to companies to assist them to improve the leadership performance
of their staff. Grow Management Consultancy draws on its up-to-date knowledge and skills in best
practice leadership concepts to assist clients with leadership performance

Mission Statement
Grow Management Consultants are committed to promoting individual and organisational leadership
excellence. We do this by providing mentoring training, coaching, consultation and program
evaluation; offering cutting edge tools, resources and expert advice; sharing best and next practices;
leading organizations through the process of creating a leadership culture; and, recognising and
celebrating excellence in leadership.

Our values are:

Core values underpinning our activities are:
 Quality
 Innovation
 Respect
 Reliability.

Strategic Objectives/Goals
Our goals are as follows:

To be well led, high performing, profitable and accountable

 Ensure that all financial operations, performance indicators and results support the strategic
policies
 Identify new and expand existing sources of revenue, including establishing a training college to
offer accredited training in leadership (long term goal for 2024 onwards)
 Achieve profits of at least 20% per annum.

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Develop services to meet customer needs and aspirations
 Increase range of services offered to include change management and diversity
 Provide professional development workshops on topics relating to leadership
 Plan for and establish an annual conference, starting in 2022.
 Increase range of e-books (there are currently 20 and plan to increase to 50 by 2025).
 Provide customers with policies and procedures for effective management.

Continue building deeper customer relationships

 Customer-centred practice, with a focus on meeting their total needs for a high quality home
 Strengthen the skills of our people, to better support customers
 Offer the latest technology so that customers can interact with us easily and effectively
 Drive innovation to better meet customer demands.

Attract, engage and develop the best staff

 Continuing the drive to a customer centred, high performance workforce and culture
 Strengthening the skills of our people, to better support customer needs
 Empowering innovation and responsiveness to change
 Continuing to enhance the diversity of our workforce.
 Employing additional consultants
 Employing an Account officer to support our office team and provide better service to our
customers
 Developing our human resources by implementing a formal human resources framework
 Exploring the use of technology in human resources.

The Market
The Management Consulting industry has grown weakly over the past five years. Poor demand from
downstream markets constrained industry revenue growth, with financial services and resources firms
cutting spending on management consultants due to economic uncertainty and falling commodity
prices.
However, businesses using management consultants to introduce new business processes and
enhance operating efficiencies have partly offset this trend. Industry operators have also increasingly
incorporated analytics into their services, which offer clients greater understanding of their business
and clients. Demand for services backed by analytics is expected to contribute to growth of 3.8% in
2020-2021.
Research also shows that there is a need for workers to have strong leadership and management
skills to support collaborative management, managing teams for a distance, empowering others and
business acumen. Thus the demand for leadership consultancy services is still strong.

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Situation Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

 Value and quality  Brand name not developed as yet

 Strong management  Small organisation
 Customer loyalty
 Friendly organisational culture
 Level of available finance for investment

Opportunities Threats

 Leadership skills in demand  High level of competition

 Opportunities to offer a range of services  Economic downturn meaning less spent on
consultants
 Failing to satisfy clients demands

Marketing Strategies
Our marketing strategies aim to:
 build our brand
 generate leads now
 help to convert those leads quickly
 form ongoing relationships and referrals.
We plan to develop our market share by:
 Improving our marketing and advertising
 Continually improving the quality of service given to clients
 Maintaining effective communication channels with all stakeholders to ascertain industry
requirements and then develop products and manage services accordingly
 Continually improving communication channels with all our stakeholders, ensuring a flow of
timely and accurate information to facilitate effective planning and decision making
 Targeting identified growth markets with planned, market appropriate campaigns employing a
variety of promotional strategies and advertising mediums
 Offering attractive fee structures to our clients
 Continually improving the skills, knowledge and effectiveness of Grow Management Consultants
through our commitment to training and development
 Regularly reviewing the effectiveness of all our operations and making improvements when and
where necessary

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Operational priorities
 Design and develop a monthly newsletter to send out to all clients (Responsibility: Principal
Consultant; Timeline: newsletter to be in operation by September 2021)
 Create a blog page on web site to provide regular latest news (Responsibility: Principal
Consultant; Timeline: immediately)
 Employ new full-time Accounts Manager (Responsibility: Principal Consultant/Human Resources
Manager; Timeline: Accounts Manager employed by July 2021)
 Offer senior consultants the opportunity to become permanent employees (Responsibility:
Human Resources Manager; Timeline: Permanent status finalized by end June 2021, contracts
revised)
 Recruit two new senior consultants on a contract basis (Responsibility: Principal
Consultant/Human Resources Manager; Timeline: New senior consultants appointed by August
2021)
 Conduct research on the use of social media in human resources recruitment and identify
incorporation into human resources practices.

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 Workplace Information Procedures and Style Guide

Purpose
The purpose of this document is to help individuals and departments to develop and file company
documentation that is consistent with the Grow Management Consultants corporate style.
This document explains the style to be applied to company documentation together with information
on typography, and advice for writing and producing documents, as well as filing documents.
It is recognised that there will be documentation which is outside these guidelines, but the general
format should be followed wherever possible.

Writing Style
Composition should be concise, friendly, and professional in keeping with the mission statement of
Grow Management Consultants. Documents should be visually appealing and use unambiguous
language.

Standard Operating Environment

Grow Management Consultants’ standard operating environment (SOE) is Microsoft Windows.
Documentation should be produced using Microsoft Word 2010 or later. This will ensure portability of
files and consistency of operation.

Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks may be either:
 Internet hyperlinks which take the reader to a web site if a modem is in use. Internet hyperlinks
must begin with https://
 Word hyperlinks appear as normal text in a printed document, but in an electronic document are
distinguished by the mouse cursor turning into the “pointing hand” shape.

Templates
There is not one standard template for documents at Grow Management Consultants, and writers
may use their own formats for documents as long as the following style guide is followed. Microsoft
Word or Publisher templates can be selected from the freely available online templates.

Page Layout
Only A4 paper is to be used for documents. The page margins must be as follows:
 All margins (left, right, top and bottom) – 2.54 com
 Header or footer 1.27cm from margin line.

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Headers and footers

Headers
Headers are used for all documents of more than one page. They contain the title of the document.

Footers
Footers are used for all documents (except for letters and emails) and must contain the filename, the
version of the document, the date and the page number.

Appearance

Styles
The standard font for all Grow Management Consultants documents is Arial 12pt. Headings should be
bolded with Heading 1 in 14pt and Heading 2 in 12 pt.
Automatic heading styles should be created and used to ensure consistency in heading.
See variations in guidelines for newsletter.
Writers may vary styles for presentation purposes.

Printing
Printing must be single sided for external communication and double-sided for internal
communication.

Filing
All documents must be filed in the appropriate folder on Grow Management Consultants’ computer
system.
Files must be named according to the file type e.g. Invoice 123. The version and the date must also
be included.
Current folders are:

Administration
 Invoicing
 Correspondence
 Purchase orders

Marketing
 Flyers
 Special offers
 Customer correspondence

Staffing
 Staff files
 Human resources policies and procedures

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 Newsletters (file by month)

General Policies and procedures

 Record keeping policies and procedure
 Complaints handling policy and procedure
 Supporting forms and templates
If there is no relevant folder, staff should create a new folder.

Privacy
Grow Management Consultants complies with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy
Principles.
When providing services, Grow Management Consultants will usually collect personal information
including the client’s name, address and contact details and information specific to the service being
delivered.
Grow Management Consultants will treat all client personal information confidentially and will not
disclose any details to another person or organisation.
Access to information is restricted to the relevant authorised staff.
Information deemed inaccurate, irrelevant or out of date is destroyed.

Newsletter Style Guide

The following style points should be followed in designing and producing newsletters.

Format
Select an appropriate template from Microsoft Word.
Use the fonts contained in the newsletter template.
Keep it short.
No more than 1 or 2 pages per newsletter publication.
Keep it bright and clear.
 Break up blocks of text with photos, graphics or cartoons.
 Break up your pages with white space.
 Print in columns.
 Use sub-headings.
 Put text in boxes, or shaded paragraphs.

Copyright
Copyright must be taken into account. If a report or article is to be included, make sure you
acknowledge the author and/or source of the publication.

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Email Style Guide
All emails should be written as follows:
Write a clear subject line.
Use greeting and closing as you would in a letter. For clients, use their first name or Mr or Mrs if
preferred.
For staff, use first names and use Kind Regards in closing. Where the email is to all staff use “Dear
All”.
Make the email easy to read. Use short paragraphs and insert blank lines between each paragraph.
Use bullet points if applicable.
Keep the email brief.
Proofread the email. Run the spell check and check the document yourself too for spelling and
grammar.

Presentation Style Guidelines

Length
 Match the number of content slides to the length of the presentation. For example, if the
presentation is to run for 10 minutes, 8 to 10 slides would be appropriate. For 15 minutes, 12 to
15 slides; 20 minutes, 15 to 18 slides.

Organisation
Use a title slide with the name of the presentation.
 The next section shows the body or content of the presentation.

Graphics/Images
 Use variety in slides. a combination of bullets, images, graphs, tables and charts should be used.
 Use clip art, photos, web links, etc. to enhance the style of your presentation, but not to the
extent that it overshadows the content.
 Keep slide animation to a minimum. A little animation to reveal and emphasize key points is fine,
but too much animation is distracting.

Colour Scheme
 Use a light background and a dark font colour for high contrast and visual impact.

Text
 You don’t have to say everything on your slides
 Use one font on all slides for consistency.
 Select a crisp, familiar font such as Times New Roman.
 Keep the font on your slides size 20 or greater. Any smaller and it is difficult to read the text
when projected in the classroom.
 Begin all sentences and bullets with a capital letter.

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 Check your slides for typos
 Use a descriptive title for each slide.
 Indicate the source of the information and/or data in the slide if applicable.

Handout masters
 Generally, handout masters should be created using three slides per page.
 Add a header and footer when using handout masters if required.

Printing
 Printing must be double-sided where possible.

Filing
 Presentations must be filed in the presentations folder and titled according to the content. The
version and date should also be included in the file’s title.

Checking of documents
A final proofread and review of all workplace documentation must be done using the Document
Checklist form.

Approvals
All documents must be approved by the General Manager in writing.

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 Staff Code of Conduct

Purpose
This code aims to guide the conduct of staff in the performance of their duties as an employee of
Grow Management Consultants. It is intended to provide practical assistance for staff faced with
ethical challenges.

Overview
All staff of Grow Management Consultants are expected to perform the duties associated with their
position skilfully, impartially and diligently in order to contribute to the efficient and economic
achievement of Grow Management Consultants’ strategic goals.
Staff should be guided in their conduct by the principles established by this code. If there is any doubt
as to the applicability of the code, or the appropriate course of action to be taken in certain
circumstances, the matter should be discussed with a senior member of staff.

Code

Ethical principles
The fundamental ethical principles on which this code of conduct is based are:
 respect for others
 integrity
 diligence
 economy and efficiency.

Respect for others

All staff are expected to treat others, including other staff and customers, with fairness and respect.
This involves:
 courtesy and responsiveness in dealing with others
 being sensitive to and respecting the rights and dignity of others
 making reasonable, fair and consistent decisions
 avoiding behaviour which might reasonably be perceived as harassment, victimization or
intimidation
 avoiding discrimination on grounds such as age, race, sex, pregnancy, sexuality, ethnic
background, nationality, disability, political conviction, religious belief, or other grounds covered
by relevant legislation
 allowing alternative points of view to be expressed and reasonably debated.

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Integrity
All Grow Management Consultants staff have an obligation as a citizen and as an employee to
observe the laws of the State and the Commonwealth.
Staff are required to be familiar with, and comply with, all relevant Grow Management Consultants
policies, procedures and codes of practices of the organisation.

Conflicts of interest
Staff should be honest in performing their role and avoid conflicts between their private interests and
those of their responsibilities to Grow Management Consultants.
Conflicts of interest may arise when a staff member is in a situation where personal circumstances are
affected by the decisions or duties carried out in their role. A conflict may arise when any of the
following are involved:
 financial interests
 personal or sexual relationships
 personal beliefs
 outside employment
 political participation
 use of confidential information
 use of facilities, equipment and resources
 acceptance of gifts or benefits.
All staff must act responsibly and report any actual or perceived conflicts of interest that arise as part
of their role. If there is any question as to whether a conflict exists, staff must discuss the
circumstances with management to determine whether a conflict exists. Appropriate strategies will be
developed to manage any reported or perceived conflicts of interest.

Diligence
5Staff are expected to carry out their duties in a professional, ethical and diligent manner at all times.
This means staff must:
 make decisions fairly, impartially and without bias, using the best factual information available
 keep records and documentation to support their decisions
 always aim to achieve the highest possible standard of performance
 continuously develop their knowledge in their professional fields and areas of responsibility.
Trainers and assessors must continue developing their vocational competencies to support
continuous improvements in the delivery of the services provided by Grow Management
Consultants
 exercise best judgment in the interests of Grow Management Consultants
 maintain adequate documentation to support decisions made
 ensure outside interests do not interfere with their ability to meet the responsibilities of their role

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 adhere to professional codes of conduct and standards of ethics
 act responsibly when becoming aware of any unethical behaviour or wrong doing by any other
person. This may involve a report to a senior member of staff or to external authorities.

Economy and efficiency

Staff should use Grow Management Consultants resources, facilities and intellectual property only for
legitimate purposes related to their role with Grow Management Consultants .
Staff should avoid waste or minimize it where avoidance is not possible.
Staff should maintain sufficient security and protection of Grow Management Consultants property,
facilities, resources and intellectual property.

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 Privacy Policy and Procedures

Scope
This privacy policy outlines how Grow Management Consultants protects and handles personal
information in accordance with its obligations under the National Privacy Principles (APPs) contained
in the Privacy Act 1988.

1. Collection of information
1.1 Grow Management Consultants collects personal information relating to individual creators,
publishers, licensees and IT professionals as part of the normal course of its business.
1.2 Where possible, Grow Management Consultants collects personal information directly from
the individuals themselves.
1.3 Third party collection: Grow Management Consultants may also collect personal information
from third parties in accordance with the requirements of the APPs, including:
 From other rightsholders of a work, including the publisher. This is restricted to
information which will assist in member recruitment or payment to rightsholders, such
as contact and entitlement information. If Grow Management Consultants cannot
collect that personal information from other rightsholders, its ability to efficiently recruit
and pay rightsholders will be restricted;
 Grow Management Consultants has agreements with similar organisations in other
countries that enable the use of foreign text and images in Australia, and the collection
of fees and royalties for the use of Australian works overseas and may collect
information in this process;
 From the public domain from third party sources such as social networking services,
industry directories, industry guides, and the Internet; and
 Through purchased mailing lists and business database lists which are used for
sending Grow Management Consultants marketing material, where recipients have
consented to receiving such communications or it would be reasonably expected of us
to use or disclose the information for that purpose.
1.4 Websites and online services: a variety of information is collected by users of our Websites
and online services.
1.5 Emails and electronic forms: our servers may record an email address if a message is sent
online. An email address will only be used for the purpose for which it has been provided
and it will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without consent.
1.6 Google Analytics: Grow Management Consultants uses Google Analytics to collect data
about users’ usage and behaviour on Websites. This information is used to improve the
Websites and is not used by Grow Management Consultants to personally identify users of
the site. All tracked data is anonymously collected in accordance with Google Analytics’
privacy policy. Refer to Google’s privacy policy for further information:
http://www.google.com.au/policies/privacy/
1.7 Cookies: Grow Management Consultants uses session ‘cookies’ to help analyse how users
use their Websites. The cookie-generated information generated about the use of the
website (including IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by our service providers on

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 servers hosted in Australia. By using our website, users consent to the processing of data
about them in the mannerand for the purposes set out above.

2. Anonymity
2.1 We provide the option for individuals to not identify themselves, or of using a pseudonym
when dealing with us. In some circumstances, if a choice is made not to provide the
information requested we may not be able to provide certain services.
2.2 We do not provide this option in circumstances where it is impracticable to do so or where
Grow Management Consultants is legally required to deal with identified individuals only.

3. Use and disclosure of personal information

3.1 Grow Management Consultants uses and discloses personal information for the primary
business purposes for which it is collected (set out above) and related management
purposes.
3.2 Grow Management Consultants uses and discloses personal information for any other
purposes to which consent has been given.
3.3 Grow Management Consultants will not otherwise use or disclose personal information
without consent being given unless otherwise required or authorised by law.
3.4 Subject to the requirements of the APPs, Grow Management Consultants may also use and
disclose personal information for any other related purpose that one would reasonably expect
the information to be used or disclosed.

4. Marketing material
4.1 Grow Management Consultants may use personal information, from time to time, to send to
marketing material that we consider will be useful, or other material about our activities.
4.2 Grow Management Consultants will only do this if we collected the information and one
would reasonably expect us to use or disclose the information for that purpose, or if consent
has been given to receiving such communications.

5. Personal information storage and security

5.1 Grow Management Consultants takes reasonable steps to protect personal information from
loss, unauthorised access, modification, disclosure, interference or other misuse. These
steps include electronic access restrictions for electronic files that contain personal
information, securing paper files containing personal information in locked cabinets and
physical access restrictions.
5.2 Once collected, Grow Management Consultants holds personal information in a number of
different formats, including on servers (located both onsite and offsite, including in the cloud),
databases, filing systems and in offsite backup storage.
5.3 Grow Management Consultants only retains personal information for as long as it is required
for its business purposes or for as long as required by law. Any information that we no longer
require is destroyed securely. An exception to this may be retention of the information for
data analysis. However, if this occurs, the information will be retained in a form that does not
allow you to be identified from that information.

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 5.4 Grow Management Consultants undertakes not to disclose your personal information in any
manner that would be considered direct marketing.

6. Digital security
6.1 Input devices such as thumb drives or other external memory devices should only be used if
they come from a trustworthy source.
6.2 Before opening a thumb drive folder, ensure that a malware scan is run on it.
6.3 Files that are to be modified should first be saved to the computer’s desktop and the thumb
drive ejected before beginning work on the files.
6.4 All files should be saved to the relevant folder, and not left on the desktop.
6.5 Back up of data should be performed at the end of every week. The data should be backed
up onto an external memory device, which will be stored in the security cupboard in the
Administration office.

7. Internet security
7.1 A mailbox should be created for each email sender so they can be accessed efficiently.
7.2 Before logging off from your inbox, ensure that it is empty. All emails should be placed in their
sender’s mailbox.
7.3 Suspicious or potentially dangerous emails should be deleted immediately. Attachments
should not be opened.
7.4 Personal emails should not be opened at work, or on Grow Management Consultants ’s
computers. If an email of a personal nature is received on a Grow Management Consultants
’s email address, forward it immediately to a private email address, and open it outside work.
Delete the original email from the inbox once it has been forwarded.
7.5 Returned email should be examined to ensure that the address in correct. If in doubt as to
the correct address, contact the source of the address and ask for verification.
7.6 Email attachments should only be opened if they come from a trusted source. Attachments
are to be stored and sent only as pdf, Word, PowerPoint or Excel files. If trustworthy emails
are received in other formats, they should be converted before filing.
7.7 New staff must be assessed on their email competence by their manager before they are
given access to their company email address and access to company files. This assessment
is to be carried out on an external email account.

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