Information Leadership Ltd uses just four words to define their reason for being. ‘Let’s make work better’ is their refrain with 150-plus clients, and with each other.
Background
Using a range of IT tools, systems and training programmes, Information Leadership helps organisations make sense of ever-growing amounts of information to increase operational effectiveness and reduce risk.
So effective has Information Leadership been in ‘making work better’ that Microsoft recently made them their Government Partner of the Year. The business has grown from just two staff (founders Sarah Heal and Grant Margison) to 35 in four locations across New Zealand in little more than a decade.
Sarah says their “sweet spot” is businesses of between 200 and 600 staff in the science, health, education, local and central government, utility, commercial, and professional services sectors.
Challenge
For a business founded on helping others manage better, it’s perhaps little surprise that Information Leadership wants to understand what drives its own performance.
“It’s important, especially when you’re building new products and services, to be able to understand the costs of development, delivering and supporting them, and whether this will make our business - and our clients – work better.”
Outcome
Although all client services - information strategy, design, implementation and training - are delivered inhouse, Information Leadership outsources its accounting and financial services and advice to Ashton Wheelans.
“We were looking for a deep competence that we couldn't build in-house, a virtual finance division. As well as virtual office, monthly P&L reporting and fortnightly cash flow measures, Information Leadership
“We regularly review various aspects of how projects deliver against our costs and revenue, and use different dashboards to measure the effectiveness of our teams.”
It’s seems to be an inescapable fact. Within Information Leadership everything leads back to one thing – a desire to make work better….