Background
Associa was formed in 1999 to provide information, advice, assistance and other membership services to NFU members. The company is owned by the NFU, one of the UK’s largest trade associations, and the NFU Mutual, the country’s leading rural insurer. Associa now also supplies services to other associations and by 2002 the annual turnover of the business was in excess of £8 million.

In 2002, the management of Associa decided to undertake a strategic review to set the strategy for the next three years. As part of their review of best practice they attended an awareness workshop run by Allman Horrocks Consulting for the Trade Association Forum.

Following this, and having done an internal strategic review, the management team decided to ask Allman Horrocks Consulting to help them complete the process.

Approach
Using our structured Strategic Management framework and the internal review document to tailor the tools and develop an agenda, we ran three workshops with the senior team and departmental heads to develop the three year plan.

Now the team is busily implementing the agreed actions including a new management system which enables continual refreshing of the strategy and cascades measures and responsibilities throughout the organisation.

Benefits
The resulting document and process have made the business more robust and has clarified thinking on business streams, brand and organisational structure. It has galvanised the whole business into moving forward enabling all levels of staff to participate in the delivery plan. Finally it has made it easier for the management team to articulate their vision and manage the growth and development of the business.

Testimonial
"Allman Horrocks really sharpened our strategic thinking. They introduced us to some simple, analytical tools and helped us to apply them to our business. As a result we have a much clearer strategy that runs through every part of the company. Most importantly we are seeing performance benefits within months of implementation."
Ian Dalzell, Chief Executive, Associa