Introducing a Better Blueprint for Organizational Design

[0:00:16] John Lynch: Alright. The number's picking up. Thank you for joining. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on your location. As you join, please drop into the chat and let us know where you're joining from or what interests you. We're going to talk about org design [organizational design]. It's great to hear what you're most interested in. We'll get going shortly... I'm in Germany. I'm from New Hampshire.

[0:00:51] Elin Tomasian: I love hearing how global our audience is.

[0:00:54] John Lynch: Yes.

[0:00:56] Elin Tomasian: We are sales. I'm from New York. Would you like to tell the audience where you're all sitting? That would be nice.

[0:01:05] Twisam Datta: Sure. We can do that as part of our interactions.

[0:01:10] John Lynch: Well, I'll sneak mine in. I'm in Cork, Ireland. When I see all these names, it makes me get some travel envy. I'm thinking,”Oh, I should really go to South Texas or Poland.” Great. We've got a healthy crowd.

[0:01:27] Elin Tomasian: Nice global audience, different countries, not even just cities.

[0:01:31] John Lynch: Alright. We can get started a little bit because I've got some housekeeping to attend to, and then we can dive into the content. So thank you so much for joining, everyone who's here so far. My name is John Lynch. As I mentioned, we're here to discuss organizational design, and we have a lot to cover in the time we have together.

Our session today is approximately forty-five minutes long. We'll present for just a little over half an hour, and then we'll have time for Q&A at the end. However, we'll also address the Q&A as we proceed. At the end of our session, you'll also see a brief survey appear, which is a feedback survey for the webinar. Whatever you can share will be gratefully received.

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On the "Docs" tab on the right, you'll also see a couple of associated assets, including our PowerPoint presentation for today. Anyone here for HRCI credits can find their HRCI credit number in the materials. We'll also share it at the end.

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And if you'd like to discuss the solutions and work we're covering here regarding organizational design in more detail at any time, please click the "Request a Demo" button. We'll be happy to set up a time with anyone on the panel or our team, and we can continue the conversation that way.

We now have a great audience, with a ton of new names and locations. I think it's my turn to hand over to Elin to get us started.

[0:03:35] Elin Tomasian: Thank you, John. Good to be here, everyone. You might recognize me from some of the previous webinars we've done on workforce transformation. You can consider this a nice extension of that as we delve into the exciting world of art design and its role in workforce transformation. I'm the head of workforce strategy and consulting, and as I mentioned, I'm based in New York.

[0:04:01] Twisam Datta: Thanks, Elin. I'll go next. Twisam Datta here. I'm based in London, part of Elin's team, and a senior consultant in the strategic consulting practice. I have over a decade of experience across the Big Four firms, with a primary focus on organizational design, strategic workforce planning, and HR transformation. I'll hand over to Florian now.

[0:04:24] Florian Fleischmann: Well, I'm Florian. Nice to have you here. Typically, I would join from Germany, but this time I'm in Ireland, overseeing product development on our side.

[0:04:36] Elin Tomasian: I love that. We're such a global team. Let's dive in, Twisam.

[0:04:40] Twisam Datta: Sure. Thanks, Elin. Before we sort of honor the huge mystery around org design, what is org design? We will uncover this by examining our framework for workforce transformation, reviewing some of the frameworks available in the market, and then defining our framework for organizational design.

The first piece I want to discuss is what our workforce transformation framework entails and where organizational design sits within that framework. Many of you may have already seen the workforce transformation framework; however, some may not. I'll explain it to everyone.

• It's a very simple framework. What we do is:
  Firstly, understand the market and the competition. It's about market intelligence understanding trends in the labor market and skill trends.

• Then, on the back of that, we do workforce planning or strategic workforce planning, which looks three to five years ahead. We examine the strategy, future workforce demand in terms of the required talent for specific roles and skills, the supply of talent for those roles and skills, and the gap between demand and supply.

• To bridge that gap, we do transformation activities, which you can see here as buy, build, borrow, and bot. Particularly, org design is part of that break intervention.
  

So, what is org design?

Org design is about aligning your structure with your strategy. It aligns processes and roles, clarifies responsibilities, and determines how people make decisions, while also bringing in process efficiencies.

If you do this, the future workforce demand both in terms of skills and the number of people will be reduced, and the gap between supply and demand will shrink. That's where workforce transformation operates dynamically, and this is where org design fits.

Now, what is org design? We define it as a method of configuring processes, structures, and roles in alignment with strategic goals.

When do we do this? Typically, this occurs every three to five years and is often triggered by internal or external factors. Internal triggers could include mergers or acquisitions, or organizational changes. External triggers could be tariffs or geopolitical changes.

The ultimate goal is to improve efficiency, optimize performance, and impact strategy.

[0:08:06] Elin Tomasian: Now that we know the definition of org design and the TalentNeuron approach to workforce transformation understand, plan, and transform, I'd love to hear about the pillars and principles of org design. How would you think about it in terms of grounding us in the pillars of understanding org design?

[0:08:31] Twisam Datta: Sure, Elin. Excellent question. We frame this through the STAR model. Many of you might have heard about it. It's a famous model developed by American psychologist G.O. Gabbard and is used by many leading consulting firms.

It focuses on five interconnected elements:

• Strategy

• Structure

• Processes

• Rewards

• People.
  

To design an organization, you examine the business strategy, how we compete in the market. What structure do we need? What are the critical roles? What processes are necessary to execute the strategy? What should be the reward strategy? And what practices will shape the right behaviors and experiences to execute the strategy?

This model has existed for decades.

[0:09:50] Elin Tomasian: So this is the traditional model you're saying?

[0:09:53] Twisam Datta: Exactly. Yes. But the world has changed, Elin, and based on that. What we have done here at TalentNeuron is taken inspiration from that model and create our framework to define organizational design. I'll explain that again.

As you can see here, we have all the existing elements of people, rewards, process, and structure. In addition to those, there are further elements we include.

Please note that strategy is at the heart of it. Every element you see here must support the strategy; otherwise, it's not part of org design at all.

[0:10:36] Elin Tomasian: I love this. It's sort of the nucleus. You have to start with the strategy and touch every piece of org design. What's interesting here, and I'm sure you'll discuss this later, is that all of this is underpinned by market intelligence, which ties you to the pace of change in what's happening. But could you tell us a little more about the elements that are here but not in the traditional model?

[0:11:03] Twisam Datta: Sure, Elin. Thanks for the prompt. Here, take a look at the structure. Now, organization design is about determining the right combination of people and bots we need, and in what locations, to support the business strategy. That is becoming an essential question for an organization maker to understand. We also have numerous virtual organizations where part of the process is outsourced. So what is the combination? What is the workforce plan? That is becoming a key part of organization design.

Speaking about bots, this is where AI and digital aspects come in. Technology has been fun so far. We cannot ignore it.

[0:11:55] Elin Tomasian: Awesome. We're not.

[0:11:57] Twisam Datta: Yeah. How is AI affecting our workforce? What are the digital products that are out there that are going to affect our workforce? It would not be prudent to overlook this. There's no way of ignoring it.

And lastly, not the least, it's the skills part. What skills do you need in the future to support the strategy? You need to be a skills-based organization. So, how can you view skills as a foundation for your organizational design? It's crucial to examine that. And as you said earlier, Elin.

[0:12:32] Elin Tomasian: I was going to say, let me see if I understand it correctly. So, skills make up tasks. Tasks indicate what can be automated by AI. That ties skills to your AI detection strategy, which in turn affects how you redesign your structure and processes. Am I understanding that?

[0:12:57] Twisam Datta: Yes, absolutely. It's skills that underpin the tasks, which make up roles that are either automated or redesigned. The roles cover part of a process, a complete process, or multiple processes. And it's the organization of roles that forms the structure, all of it aligned to the strategy.

[0:13:20] Elin Tomasian: Interesting. So, with our model, you're saying there are no blind spots anymore. You're bringing in market intelligence and examining the granular level of your structure, which starts with skills and branches out, providing implications across all other components of this wonderful nucleus you're describing.

[0:13:44] Twisam Datta: Yeah.

[0:13:45] Elin Tomasian: Let's put this into practice. While this is great in theory, I'd love to test it through our usual example case study for the audience, using TalentNeuron, a company we frequently discuss, to demonstrate how this works in today's market.

Let's consider a global food and beverage company that we've introduced in previous webinars. It's a multinational producer and distributor facing the same challenges as many companies: geopolitical volatility, depending on location, economic shifts, interest rate fluctuations, tariffs, and even wars. They're just beginning their automation journey and need to determine which parts of the organization will be affected and how that will trigger the redesign of roles and creation of new business units.

Rising competition is also a factor — every other company is thinking about the same things. How is this affecting the business of NeuroNoms, both regionally and globally? How can they manage high operating and employee costs, especially as skills become more sophisticated with the advancement of automation?

And, overarching all this, do they have the best organizational structure to support rapid change? As you mentioned earlier, organizations should conduct an organizational redesign every five years, and coincidentally, our example company, TalentNeuron, hasn't done one in five years. So, they're ripe for this case study. Let's dig in.

Let's examine their organizational structure. Today, they are designed by function. That means all function heads globally report to the CEO and manage their own business units independently. It's unclear how they're distributed globally.

When considering this functional design and the associated challenges — geopolitical factors, AI and automation, local and global competition, and wage-related costs and efficiency — it's likely the audience is already sensing that TalentNeuron might not be equipped to handle some of these challenges.

I'd love to hear from the audience: looking at this functional structure and market context, where do you think TalentNeuron may face operational or strategic challenges? Add your thoughts in the chat. Where could they struggle, being functionally aligned?

In the organizational design, do you see any indication of how they communicate across regions and globally?

I love it — we're getting some feedback. "Operating in silos." Absolutely. "The CRO and COO are siloed" — yes. "Nothing on geography and culture." Exactly. If you're selling food and beverages, geography and culture matter.

This is brilliant feedback. "Interfunction coordination." Yes! "Collaboration among all the leaders." You're all very sharp and are already touching on what we're going to cover next.

Thank you all for your input. Now, let's have our expert, Twisam, walk us through the challenges, including many of the ones you just mentioned.

[0:18:08] Twisam Datta: Yeah. No. I could also read some of the comments there. Excellent. You guys have nailed it. If you look at it structurally, this is a functional structure. People are working in silos. Each of them is working in their little organizations, and integration is happening at the CEO level. What happens in a centralized model is that the organization is not cohesive. Decision-making often occurs at the top without being decentralized to the last level, resulting in a lack of responsiveness and flexibility in the market, which is essentially required.

A connected point is the whole geography focus, which I also saw mentioned in the chat. Here, the geographic focus is limited to the CXO level, which is the level below the CEO. That means there is a global-first and local-secondary strategy. If you have that, there could be a lot of competition in local markets, which might arise, and the organization will face huge challenges in responding to those challenges.

I also saw one of the questions in the chat: What about capabilities? How do we capture those capabilities? That comes from the strategy. That comes from market intelligence. Based on that, we assess the capabilities the organization would need.

For example, there are specific capabilities that are absent. Sustainability is a significant issue that is emerging. Where do we see sustainability today? Secondly, IT is subordinate to the CFO function. With such a critical focus required on AI, automation, and digital products, you need to have a CIO or CTO role who can drive that strategy.

This was one of the comments I also saw in the chat.

[0:20:09] Elin Tomasian: She's the second innovation officer, as Beth said. So yeah. Absolutely.

[0:20:13] Twisam Datta: Absolutely. And then, from a sales perspective, it's essential to note this. Food and beverages are very connected products. They share the same channels and retail stores or supermarkets. The go-to-market strategy is the same.

Having two sales teams leads to inefficiencies, which in turn drive high operating costs. Had it been, for example, a semiconductor business and the other a food business, then I could understand — the sales channels are different, the customer profiles are different. We could separate them.

However, food and beverages are such a closely connected aspect that a differentiated focus doesn't help. Also, for example, you have a CMO and a COO. Someone mentioned that in the chat as well. There's diffusion of control. Who owns revenue? Therefore, there needs to be clear accountability and responsibility, with those roles defined.

Last but not least, as we have been discussing market intelligence, our insights suggest that more and more competitors, especially emerging ones, are placing a greater focus on geography, allocating more resources to specific regions.

[0:21:37] Elin Tomasian: So we've just talked about all the challenges. You're now going to walk us through two possible options to boost their strategy for reorganization. I think it makes sense. The first option you're going to show us is geography-led, which many folks noticed was a major challenge, and you agreed. I'd love to hear how you're adapting the organizational design based on geography.

[0:22:07] Twisam Datta: Sure. What we typically do in an org design exercise — that's what we've done with TalentNeuron as well — is present a couple of options for them to pick and choose from. The first option is the geography one. I'll take some time to explain this.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of roles, as it was compiled from a case study standpoint. There may be a few more roles you see on the right that we haven't considered, which are also valid. Someone mentioned the chief strategy officer — they would need one. It's a brilliant suggestion I saw in the chat as well.

So I'll go from the right. You have the CHROs, CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs — the usual suspects. The center of excellence provides excellence and replicates functional excellence across geographies. Please note the critical role of the CIO.

Then I'll discuss the three regional heads a bit further. They are organizations in themselves. They have everything — sales, marketing, operations, all the support functions. Therefore, accountability is now decentralized and more focused regionally. They are like entrepreneurs themselves, mini-CEOs driving strategy with the help of the functional excellence of the group on the right.

The second option here is a business-led structure. I won't discuss the roles on the right because they're the same. However, here, it's business-led, with a beverages head and a food head, who are in themselves organizations. You have a regional focus, but it's below the sales layer, not at the beverages or food head level. The companies are organized by business.

Now, I would like to ask the audience to go to the poll and share their options. Which option is the best for Neuron? Which one do you think Neuron went ahead with?

[0:24:24] Elin Tomasian: So we have two options: geography-led, where you have one for each region, and business-led, where we've broken our businesses into beverages and food. Now, we'd love to take a poll from the audience and ask for your opinion on which strategy and organizational design you think will best meet Neuron's challenges.

I'm seeing a lot of votes leaning slightly more toward geography. It's surprisingly close. Okay, it's getting a bit more distant. We'll leave a few more seconds for those who haven't voted yet.

The poll is right by the chat. You'll see it in between chat and docs, above your chat functionality, if you're not finding it. Okay. Great. We're receiving more votes.

I think we have a good number of votes, still climbing a little, but what we're seeing is that the majority of you're voting for geography-led, which is interesting. Now we'll let our expert, Twisam, tell us — is geography-led the right answer?

[0:25:45] Twisam Datta: Sure. Before I do that, John, please close the poll so I can share my screen again.

[0:25:51] Elin Tomasian: Here we go. Thank you. I have a feeling I know the answer, and it's probably going to align with what the audience chose.

[0:26:04] Twisam Datta: Yeah. So Elin, hold on. Our audience chose geography. Yes, they went ahead with geography. But it's interesting to note that 40% of the audience did choose the other way.

Before I discuss why they chose the geography-led model, let me explain that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for any organization.

The reason they opted for the geographical structure is that they wanted to circumvent geopolitical instability. They could best do that through a geography-led structure. It would lead to more flexibility and responsiveness to competition.

They also wanted to reduce costs. Rather than having separate sales teams for food and beverages, and duplicating organizational structures, they sought to reduce operational costs and remain competitive. That's why they chose the geography-led model.

Also note that the business-head-led structure remains centralized, with a beverages head and a food head. So there's still some siloing within the businesses. In contrast, the geography model integrates everything within the region itself. The company is more responsive to competition that way.

However, as I gave the example, if this had been a food business or a semiconductor business — and let's say the plan was to sell one of the businesses in the future or for any other reason — the organization might have chosen the business-led structure.

Ultimately, it is the organization's strategy that drives its geographical structure, which brings us back to our model, where strategy is at the core, the nucleus underpinning everything.

[0:28:05] Elin Tomasian: So what you're saying is that because the strategy is that they're selling beverages and food. There's a lot of synergy between beverages and food as products; it makes sense for you to combine those business units and lead with a geography-led sales and go-to-market strategy. I think you said that if you were a semiconductor business and also had a beverage business, there's no synergy in your strategy. You don't need to go to the market together. In that case, perhaps a business-led structure would work better.

But TalentNeuron is in food and beverage, and we can see why you chose geography. Food and beverages are also highly localized in terms of taste and culture, influenced by geopolitical factors. So I think I understand it much better. Thank you for adding your input on that.

But I think there's one thing missing here. You had discussed with us the importance of AI and digital transformation, as well as the growing significance of the CIO role. So, if the CIO, for instance, in a geography-led organization, starts looking at automation and transforming the organization — whether it's from their plants and manufacturing to a more AI-driven strategy — how will that affect my organizational design? I'd love to know the next step in this.

[0:29:32] Twisam Datta: Sure. Thank you, Ellen. Which brings me to my next conversation today, which is how we detail out the organization design, blending that with automation. Many of you in our audience might have already worked on several org design projects. You would know the steps I'm talking about on the left.

You would look at how work gets distributed, then examine the roles being performed, and determine who is responsible, accountable, supported, and informed. What are some of the workload indicators? What's the effort? What's the workforce plan? Look at that.

However, this is where we bring together the best of both worlds, examining traditional organizational design and detailing how we would outline it, along with the automation potential associated with each role. So, what we do here — and what the CIO would typically do in this case, along with working cross-functionally with other functional heads as well as cross-geographically with geographical heads — is to look at what roles can be automated and what parts of those roles can be automated. How can I effectively combine or redesign roles to maximize their potential?

What will be my ROI? What's going to be the cost and headcount impact for that? So it's about bringing both aspects together. Last but not least, skills. We talked about that at the beginning. The organization needs to assess whether current employees possess the necessary skills. Now, based on the redesign and the automated roles, what skills do they need to have in the future? In addition to considering this aspect, we also design the organization to be truly skills-based.

With that note, I would like to hand over to Florian, who will show you how our platform provides this differentiation in terms of skills, workforce planning, as well as AI and digital capabilities.

[0:31:43] Florian Fleischmann: Thanks a lot, Twisam. So, if you have a look at how the platform can reflect it, let me share my screen.

[0:31:55] Elin Tomasian: So Florian is now going to show us our platform as part of TalentNeuron and how it supports you in org design. Not only do we help you with the strategy of considering all the factors that affect organizational design and your strategy, but we're also able to put it into a smart, AI-driven platform that can help you design your organization and its structures, underpinned by market intelligence and skills. Florian, take it away.

[0:32:26] Florian Fleischmann: Well, it all starts with taking the internal data. Therefore, use the data in Workday and SuccessFactors to accurately reflect your current organization. Using your internal data, you can understand where inefficiencies exist within the organization, where you have issues with too small teams — meaning the leadership span — and where your organization is too deep. This allows you to identify inefficiencies based on those factors.

And now we are starting to add additional information, such as our automation potential. Let me do that with you. The automation potential we generate, based on billions of external data points that we collect, including scientific publications, job listings, etc. We use that to identify the kinds of skills necessary for a task. We identify the types of technologies that can automate this process, enabling us to provide a clear estimate of how much can be automated.

Let's examine it through our organization. Here you can see our hiring and onboarding department. We've built in a couple of KPIs. Here you can see the automation potential directly. But we also looked into skills. Do we have any issues in your workforce? We can directly take market data and benchmark the skills within your organization against those of market leaders and your competitors to identify any issues with regard to skills.

Let's go a level deeper, where we can then look into the department. I can understand what kinds of technologies would help me automate tasks within hiring and onboarding. And, taking all that information into account, you will then plan your positions accordingly. You look into the people within the organization. You create new positions. You move people to different parts of the organization.

And since the future is a little uncertain and there are many options, as we've just seen based on the neuron example, you can model different scenarios. You can model one scenario where you might want to reflect an organization that has a high share of outsourcing. At the same time, you may want to model a different scenario where you attempt to maximize the use of automation.

And that's the part that will be reflected here. You'll be able to understand the changes you have made in your organization across different scenarios, understanding what kind of capabilities you need to hire, understanding which people you might need to move between different departments, so that you can create a plan upon which you can execute, with clear guidance on how to build that future organization.

Let's take a look at the analytics here. As you can see, I have already predefined a couple of scenarios of what it would mean to build the organization using outsourcing. As you can see, this would result in a slight decrease in my headcount to 210. At the same time, when I apply automation to the maximum degree possible, utilizing all the different technologies available, you wouldn't, in a real case, do that. However, here you'll see the maximum potential that automating tasks in your workforce would bring, reducing the FTE [Full-Time Equivalent] necessity to 115.

Looking into the measures, it's essential to understand how many transactions you need to process, how many people you need to recruit, and how many people you need to relocate. Additionally, it involves having a deep understanding of where the relocated individuals will need to be placed within the organization. It's like this process here. So, you would then go down to the individual level.

So altogether, what it combines is that you can have the insights from the markets to be better informed about building your organization and its organizational structure, ultimately, while also having a long-term perspective on strategic workforce planning.

Let's take a look at this. This has reflected a basic one-year planning horizon, where you may want to understand your costs. However, it is also essential to look beyond the shorter horizon when evaluating automation, as it won't happen overnight. You will gain a long-term perspective on it. You'll understand how the costs will develop over the upcoming year and the magnitude of the transformation costs.

And since this shouldn't happen only at a strategic level, you can involve the entire organization. Involve the leaders in this process so they can plan and then work with it to build a future organization. That's from my side. Handing over to you, Twisam.

[0:37:11] Elin Tomasian: We've got some really good questions coming in from the audience. So, we will certainly be able to answer some of those. However, before we proceed, many people have been inquiring about our capabilities at TalentNeuron. Let's dive into what we offer, which addresses some of those questions — organization design capabilities that combine principles, consulting, and platform strategy.

[0:37:45] Twisam Datta: Sure. Thanks, Elin. These are the use cases that clients generally come to us with. They want us to diagnose their organization. They ask us to review their structure and operating model, and let them know about some of the areas of challenge and improvement that are present.

Now, some organizations also take it a step further and ask us to redesign their operating model, much like what we are doing for Neurons today. Then, design the top-level structure. Some clients ask for that, as well as detailing our automation potential.

This is the third and fourth aspect of that — how does automation impact the organization and the role and org design? Another critical factor here is job architecture. A few clients have reached out to us, but many of them miss a trick here. When you redesign the entire organization, the bedrock and architecture of all the jobs change, so it is imperative to redesign the job architecture to align with the redesigned organization.

These are some of the use cases that clients come to us with, and we have a consultative as well as a platform-based approach to address them. The way we do it is this: we look at the diagnostic.

Each of the aspects I discussed — the operating model design, the structure design, the job architecture, and the automation design — is not a one-time exercise that we undertake; rather, it is an ongoing process. This is a dynamic solution that we have for them. This dynamic solution is enabled through our platform capabilities, which analyze skills data, workforce plans, market data, AI automation potential, and task data. We do this modeling on a dynamic basis rather than doing a one-time exercise for org design and then saying, "Hey, let's look at it five years later."

What I would like to leave the audience with as a thought is that you have examined our framework. It captures all the aspects that are typical of traditional consulting, such as structure and processes. There were also questions in the chat about processes — why don't we look at them? We look at processes.

We also discuss roles, structures, rewards, and field practices. However, what differentiates our approach is the integration of skills, AI, digital, and automation potential, as well as workforce planning, which makes this approach holistic. And as Elin beautifully put it, there are no blind spots. Also, let's not forget about the market intelligence as well. Through our consulting and platform solutions, we equip our clients with the best organizational design that delivers their organizational strategy.

[0:41:07] John Lynch: Awesome. Thank you so much. I think we've had several questions throughout the last forty minutes. We tried to answer them as we went through, but I think one or two might be worth spotlighting and repeating. So, Brian, I'll head to the Q&A section now. You've already answered this question, but typically, when working with TalentNeuron and your clients, do many of those clients have an inventory of employee skills to help with matching? Additionally, do we identify those tasks based on job titles or descriptions?

[0:41:43] Florian Fleischmann: Yep. So, as for the skills, most companies typically still don't have an internal skill inventory. However, if you think about it, a great deal of unstructured information is available about the kinds of skills people possess. So, look at the LMS system — you would know which trainings people have participated in. Based on that, you can infer the employee's skills.

Additionally, there are many other sources you can use to infer an employee's skills. That's one way to do it, using AI to build a skill profile. At the same time, we do have a skills module, a marketplace where employees can log in and maintain their skills to get a more precise view of their skills.

So that's one way. Regarding the tasks of a job, we collect labor information worldwide. We have approximately 5 billion job posts, as well as around 2 billion profiles from LinkedIn, among others. We have scientific white papers, patents, and other relevant documents. Based on that, this was another question — we infer the kind of duties related to a job.

So take a gardener. You know that a gardener needs to cut grass. Then we understand what kind of technologies are available to support cutting grass. There, you would have the robots that circle the garden and cut the grass. And then you would consult scientific white papers or user reviews to determine the extent to which it can help.

But you would then understand, based on current technologies that are out there — not in 2029 or 2050 — what can be done with automation now. And that's one thing we've heard from many customers. The kind of automation potential we provide is something that can be truly achieved and is backed up when these technologies are implemented. It's something tangible that can be achieved.

[0:43:35] John Lynch: Fantastic. I think you answered my second question, which is from Jill, regarding the assumptions about which roles could be automated. So, thank you for covering that. There were one or two other questions from Jill on our approach and process. Alan and I kind of volunteered you for this one. How do you consider the work that the organization must do to deliver strategy? For example, someone making all design recommendations — how do we help those become real?

[0:44:07] Elin Tomasian: I think that's a good question for Twisam to ask since he's our expert in this space. Do you want to repeat it for Twisam?

[0:44:14] Twisam Datta: Yes, please. Yeah. I missed it.

[0:44:16] John Lynch: Yeah. But I think you've kind of answered it in the chat already, but Joe...

[0:44:20] Twisam Datta: Jen and Joe's question. John?

[0:44:23] John Lynch: Joe, Jill. Yeah. Jill's question.

[0:44:26] Twisam Datta: Yeah. We also had a couple of questions we wanted to add. How does a model capture processes? You cannot be blind to processes. That's one of the elements in our framework. It's not just about roles and structures; you also need to examine processes where you can provide support from a process standpoint. If there are inefficiencies in the process, it's our responsibility to highlight them. How can we best resolve it, structurally or through role clarity? That's the focus.

There was also another question I saw in the chat about how people-centric the process is. An organization — no matter how much it automates — will still have people who need to deliver results. So the process here is extremely people-centric. Yes, on occasion, there will be restructuring, and that's inevitable, but it's still for the betterment of the organization.

We co-create the organization structure with our clients. We also implement change management interventions as part of our design. We don't just recommend a structure and walk away; we also help them implement those organizational structures. That's one of our offerings. We've just covered the main use cases here, but there's a lot we can do as well. Awesome. Any other questions, Sean? Did you pick up anything we need to cover?

[0:46:06] John Lynch: We might have time for one more, and I think this could be for you also, Twisam. This is from Stephanie: Organization diagnostic — Is a model of the business processes, and enterprise architecture required?

[0:46:20] Twisam Datta: Yes. We examine processes as part of organizational diagnostics and architecture. All the elements in our framework are part of the diagnostic that we do.

[0:46:35] Elin Tomasian: And there are some questions about how we integrate market intelligence. Florian, I think you'd be best to answer that.

[0:46:44] Florian Fleischmann: Well, yeah. We integrate it from several different perspectives; one we have already discussed is the automation potential. The other perspective is that we have all the data. We have data about many companies, competitors, and best practices. That kind of information allows us to examine our competitors and understand which areas they invest in, as well as the kinds of skills they are focusing on. It helps me take the skills perspective to reflect on my competitors. Do I follow the same topics? Could there be areas where I'm behind in terms of investment?

So that's another perspective. The third one is how you could build department structures. We have an AI that suggests ways to build a marketing department or identifies a few key departments. That's another perspective where the market data supports. Lastly, this comes to the execution part. It helps us understand in which locations it's feasible to hire certain talents and what could be a good location to do that. The location perspective is the last part, where we can support with market intelligence data.

[0:47:58] Elin Tomasian: Yeah. So, imagine doing any sort of organizational structural changes without knowing what your competitors are doing. There's a big blind spot. Best practice would be not to move forward with any structure without tracking what the market intelligence is telling you about your competitors, whether regionally, globally, or functionally. We help integrate all of that into the solution you receive.

Florian, another question was about integration with HRIS tools. You mentioned it in the beginning, whether it was Workday or SAP. How can the information flow back and forth between the HRIS and our platform solution?

[0:48:44] Florian Fleischmann: Yep. However, it starts with basic data to understand the workforce structure and reflect it, but then it becomes more challenging. So, you want to connect financial information to enable both short-term and long-term planning. So you connect the financial system. Then you take the next step and say, 'Well, now I've done my plan, but I want to track it.' So am I on the right track? Where are there still areas where I want to improve? That's basically where the monitoring comes in, where we synchronize again with the HRS systems or financial systems to ensure that you support the organization in understanding where they are and where they still have open topics.

[0:49:25] Elin Tomasian: So that answered the question of Jamie. So, thank you. John, over to you.

[0:49:31] John Lynch: Thank you. I think we have several questions, but I'm not sure we'll be able to address all of them, as we're already running a bit over. However, for anything we didn't cover, we will follow up directly with each individual. Carlos, that goes to you. Anna will give you some direct answers via email after the event. In the meantime, thank you all for joining us. Anyone who has joined us as part of their HRCI credits and course accreditation can find that number in the documents section at the end of the PowerPoint presentation. But thank you to our panel and our audience; I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. See you next time.

[0:50:16] Twisam Datta: Thanks for your time.

[0:50:17] John Lynch: Okay. Thank you. Bye.

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