Strategic Restructuring

Times of economic crisis generate a widespread need for radical corporate restructuring across all industries, involving the realignment of entire leadership structures. Successful restructuring in these conditions requires a holistic approach involving all management levels and all functional areas. The key requirement is a rigorous analysis to identify the management skills needed for the future.

Accordingly, Egon Zehnder International has created a practice specializing in strategic restructuring, applying an effective holistic approach.

The Egon Zehnder International approach for strategic restructuring has four key components:

• A Diagnostic Review with the Chairman, the CEO and other board members, to understand and define the interests of the key stakeholders, and to develop a vision for the future
• A Competence-Based Analysis of the key positions and a rigorous Team-Effectiveness Review to identify and evaluate relevant executives and top teams 
• Development of Top Management Structures in the light of organizational scenarios for financial, operational and strategic restructuring
• Management Development Measures to generate strategic restructuring skills within the company, enabling the company to make necessary short and medium-term people changes, so that the right executives and teams are in place

The approach covers every aspect of the company’s activities. Not just top management, but corporate governance and motivation and incentive systems can all be appropriately aligned. In this, the approach differs strongly from the “interim manager” approach, where expert managers join companies for fixed terms.

Among the leadership skills that Egon Zehnder International deems critical during a restructuring phase are the ability to promptly identify and master a crisis; rapid decision-making; the ability to deal with conflict; complexity management; stress resistance; risk appraisal; and objectivity.

The practice includes consultants from around the world who have conducted assessments in over 30 countries. A Global Competence Team of colleagues from New York, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Shanghai and Berlin provides our consultants with the necessary expertise. A board of globally experienced restructuring specialists from various industries advise our teams on specific issues as required, with each assignment being tailored to the character, scale and complexity of the client’s operations.

Around one-half of Egon Zehnder consultants have substantial experience in strategic planning and restructuring, with around 20 teams already engaged in strategic restructuring projects. Egon Zehnder International is ideally suited to this kind of consulting approach, as for decades our corporate culture has supported sustainable growth, stable long-term values and incentivized collaboration in order to serve our clients.