A few years ago I was in Canary Wharf at a casual drinks reception with senior technologists representing the various corporate residents of the Wharf. Part-way through the evening, the conversation turned to their disappointment with their outlay on various technologies, specifically the fact that these technologies hadn’t delivered the transformative change that they had hoped for. So I started to ask a few challenging questions:
Me: “So, were you introducing any amazing new processes – a bit like Amazon when introduced one-click shopping?”
Answer: “Er, no.”
Me: “What about organisational changes? The latest Royal Navy aircraft carrier only has 690 sailors because everybody’s got multiple roles, so they don’t need the 3000-plus sailors the Americans have for a carrier of the same size. Anything like that?”
Answer: “Er, no.”
Me: “What about cultural change? Are you doing anything that might cause the staff to see themselves or the organisation in a different light?”
Answer: <sigh> “Nope.”
It rapidly became obvious that the concept of TOM (Target Operating Model) had been AWOL from these ‘transformative’ initiatives. They were pure-play technology changes. But even worse, whenever I mentioned TOM, the reflexive response was ‘oh yeah, people, process, technology…’ almost like a mantra. But nobody wanted to push beyond the mantra and discuss in deeper detail, and nobody could cite practical examples of TOM in action.
Personally, I’m fascinated by TOMs. I’d argue that if a programme doesn’t touch the current operating model, it’s probably not worth doing. A few years ago, on the back of a conversation with my course director at Oxford, I went off searching for the Carlsberg of TOMs, i.e. Probably The World’s Best Target Operating Model Ever.
Task number one was to define what ‘best’ actually meant. We eventually agreed that it was probably a combination of a) most widely adopted, and b) longevity without material change. Armed with those definitions, I started looking back through business history. Present day: Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Nope. Back a little further: Alphabet? Apple? Microsoft? Nope. The Japanese industrial titans of the 80s and 90s? Nope.
Eventually, I found a good candidate, but I had to go back to 1890 and The Savoy Grill in London, featuring a Frenchman who had fought in the Franco-Prussian war. Auguste Escoffier formulated the brigade de cuisine – the TOM that underpins the $800Bn per annum restaurant industry. He didn’t just come up with roles. He knitted the whole thing together – the tech, the culture, the working environment, supply chains , and still found time to capture and refine over 5,000 recipes (his processes) and train over 2,000 chefs. And the TOM he put in place in 1890, that saved The Savoy Hotel from going under, survives largely intact 135 years later.
Today is the 181st anniversary of his birth. His greatest legacy, his TOM, is set out in the case study below.
Bon appetit.