Consulting Services & Case Studies

The goal of The Coxe Group is to help our clients improve quality, productivity, profitability, and professional satisfaction.

As professional practice grows more complex, we feel that our principal benefit to clients comes from our ability to enable firms to anticipate the future and confront it successfully. In essence, we help people see around corners.

The Coxe Group provides the following consulting services:

Organization Strategies and Planning
Management Retreats and Internal Communications
Ownership Expansion and Transition Plans
Profitability Analysis and Financial Management
Personnel Development, Motivation, and Incentive Compensation
Key Personnel Search
In-House Seminars, Training, and Coaching
Quality Management
Partnering
Technology in Practice
Market Research and Image Studies
Market Plans and Tactics
Merger / Acquisition Evaluations and Searches
Chief Executive Counseling

Services include organization analysis and evaluation of alternative approaches to pursuing strategic goals.	Organization Strategies and Planning A young architecture/engineering firm grew in less than a year from a staff of 36 to 70, leaving the four principals working 60-hour weeks and feeling they had no middle management to help with the load. We helped the firm develop a new organization structure that delegated many project tasks while keeping the principals involved in quality control and overall management. Top of Page
Services include communication training, team building, conflict resolution, and facilitation of management retreats.	Management Retreats and Internal Communications Departments of a large, multi-discipline firm were scattered in several locations in a midwest city. A single building for the entire firm was under construction when it became clear the principals could not comfortably agree on a plan to consolidate operations. We suggested a retreat and facilitated discussion among the principals. As a result, they were able to address their differences and devise a format for integration and close collaboration in their new home. Top of Page
Services include firm valuation, design of buy-sell mechanisms, and follow-through with the client's lawyers and accountants.	Ownership Expansion and Transition Plans Three founders of a large planning firm wanted to expand ownership without yielding control. We developed a three-part, buy-sell plan that allows key personnel to be offered some ownership, established a compensation plan that allows the new owners to pay for their equity by funding the retirement of senior partners, and lets the founders maintain control through an executive committee until they retire. Top of Page
Services include evaluation of financial performance and development of management information systems to monitor operations.	Profitability Analysis and Financial Management A 120-person firm had struggled with low profitability (two to six percent) for years and built up a six-person accounting department trying to control it. Our analysis revealed that their emphasis on controls and cash-basis bookkeeping was encouraging short-term, crisis-oriented decisions. A decentralized budgeting process and an improved financial information system gave management the means to produce higher profits and reduce overhead. Top of Page
Services include design and installation of systems for performance appraisal and incentive compensation.	Personnel Development, Motivation, and Incentive Compensation An established firm was losing valued project managers to its competition. Our analysis suggested the cause was lack of management from above rather than shortage of candidates from below. We designed and installed a developmental review system that involves management in training and motivating key personnel. Top of Page
Services include identification and screening of potential candidates, reference checking, and assistance with employment negotiations.	Key Personnel Search We have helped firms fill positions such as general manager, marketing director, senior designer, chief mechanical engineer, financial manager, interiors department head, health care planner, industrial market representatives, and construction company president. Top of Page
Services include design and conduct of training and individual coaching programs in marketing, management, and leadership areas.	In-House Seminars, Training, and Coaching The marketing director of a multi-discipline firm with three major departments and seven regional offices wanted to overcome the tendency of unit managers to rely on leads that came over the transom. We studied the firm's business development practices, then conducted a one-day, in-house workshop that trained 23 managers and assistants in a process for pursuing new clients. Top of Page
Services include education in quality leadership and quality management principles, developing implementation strategies, training-the-trainer, and process facilitation.	Quality Management Clients were requiring a documented and demonstrable implementation of TQM in an engineering practice. The principals did not want yet another slogan or another fashionable management technique. Starting with educational sessions, the principals understood the value of the concepts to their practice and developed an approach by which they could gain benefits of quality management - specifically, in this instance, Total Quality Management - and satisfy their clients' requests for documented implementation. Top of Page
Services include clarification of need, design, and facilitation of meetings, as well as team building.	Partnering The client for a huge construction project felt the need for markedly greater cooperation among project participants. We designed and facilitated a two-day workshop involving 18 individuals from eight organizations. The workshop increased understanding among participants, streamlined the meeting schedules, increased meeting efficiency, decreased the necessary number of participants at each meeting, and provided a process for regular redesign and restructuring of a fast track team. Top of Page
Services include strategic planning, budget review, implementation assistance, and development of training strategies.	Technology in Practice The principals in a firm of 70 found themselves unwilling to commit further resources to computers. Past expenditures had not yielded anticipated results, and the computer users were feeling isolated from the main practice. By integrating the computers directly into project teams and training users at all levels, the projects became significantly more profitable. Top of Page
Services include evaluation of new market opportunities, location studies for branch offices, and profiles of a firm's image in its markets.	Market Research and Image Studies A large firm whose work was heavily concentrated in one volatile area wanted to investigate options for diversification. We projected the outlook for the firm's services in two promising project types and three prospective branch locations in order to assist management in choosing future directions. Top of Page
Services include assistance with market selection, strategies for new business development, and establishment of internal marketing organizations and roles.	Marketing Plans and Tactics At age 60, the founder of a successful professional practice firm was still bringing in 90 percent of the clients and was concerned about the future. We helped to create a marketing plan that added business development responsibilities to the roles of 12 other partners and set up a central marketing staff to support them. Within five years, the firm tripled in size, and the younger principals are now closing well over half the work. Top of Page
Services include identification of firms for acquisition or merger and evaluation of the potential of specific affiliations.	Merger/Acquisition Evaluations and Searches A major engineering firm proposed merger with a large architectural firm. We studied the implications of putting the two firms together and presented a joint report to both managements outlining the opportunities and the hurdles that would require attention. Top of Page
Services involve periodic meetings with chief executives to act as an outside sounding board on issues of interest.	Chief Executive Counseling We meet three times a year with the managing principal of a 100-person practice to give him an outside perspective on his ideas and concerns. Recent issues covered in these sessions (and interim phone calls) include revising the roles of the firm's principals, the strategy for opening a branch office, and ways to improve the firm's quality control. Top of Page