Our Work

What We Do

The Coxswain Alliance Difference

Your company is unique, and so are we. We’re Coxswain Alliance, an operational improvement consulting firm that does things differently. Before making recommendations, we invest significant time in learning what currently works in your organisation and what’s falling short, we get to know your people, processes and goals. With this information in hand we develop tailored solutions that address your organisation’s unique needs and improve operational performance.

“They genuinely sought to understand our people and our business—every nook and cranny of it.”

Your leaders always remain in charge and won’t be told they’re “doing it wrong.” Instead, we’ll carefully observe, offer constructive feedback, and make thoughtful recommendations. Then, from senior to front-line management, you’ll see us working alongside your people as your improvement strategy is deployed, answering their questions and coaching them every step of the way—because we’re in this together.

Core Services

We understand that every organisation and industry has unique challenges—there’s no one size fits all template solution. But there are some fundamental issues that affect all organisations when striving for greater productivity and enhanced revenue.

Our core services address these fundamental issues. Your customised solution may require a combination of some or all our services. Let’s talk about your immediate issues – with an eye on your big picture.

Process optimisation

Analysing, re-designing and implementing new processes to better service your customers.

Tools for managing more effectively

Enhancing and implementing new ways of managing your processes to reduce costs, increase efficiency and streamline decision- making. Ensuring your people have the suitable tools to make decisions, increase productivity and reduce costs.

Navigating Change

Supporting people through the change, ensuring their understanding and engagement as well as setting out roles and accountabilities.

Executive alignment

Aligning executive teams to strategic goals, and planning for the execution of those strategies, including what role the executive will play.

Developing leadership and management capability

Interventions and programs to provide the organisation’s leaders with the requisite skills to operate more effectively and have greater impact. Give your people the skills they need.

Coaching

Coaching of your managers – and implementing internal coaching processes – to ensure the ongoing development and support of your people in new ways of doing things. This is to ensure you effectively maintain momentum.

Learning and e-Learning

How do you provide your people with the required training and development? Can you also translate your learning approaches to the e-environment? There are increasing pressures from people in all organisations for e-Solutions, including how they manage their development.

Complementary services

We have built relationships with a range of organisations that complement our ability to deliver to a range of needs of our clients. Rather than seeking to be ‘all things to all people’, we recognise that at times we need to work with other resources to deliver to your needs.

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About Us

Formed in 2009 by a core group of operations consulting professionals, Coxswain Alliance provides a broad range of consulting services with a focus on how to work most effectively within the Australian and Asia-Pacific context. Our team offers you extensive corporate managerial and consulting expertise, including over 150 years of combined experience within a global operational consulting firm.

Helping companies across industries analyse their existing procedures and design an efficient, results driven operating model has been our mission from day one, but we don’t stop there. As implementation specialists, we roll up our sleeves and help you execute your strategy— supporting you throughout the change process.

How We Work – What You Can Expect

We’ll sit down together and have candid discussions about roles, responsibilities, and anticipated outcomes—so you have a clear understanding of what you’re getting for your investment.

“We understood who they were, why they were there, and what outcomes to expect.”

Our people will continuously communicate with you and your teams throughout your project, so everyone is clear about what’s happening. Even after our time together, you won’t be forgotten. We’ll check in on you, and you and your staff can contact us anytime with questions or concerns—at no additional cost.

“The Coxswain Alliance Team checked in post-implementation daily, then weekly, then monthly—
and still touch base years later. They’re truly invested.”

Why Our Name

Cox• swain / koks’n/ noun

a person who steers a (small, usually racing) boat; a person in a racing shell who usually directs the rest of the crew.

Just like in a rowing crew, our consultants play a key role in helping organisations navigate and steer through the challenges of a dynamic competitive environment. By working in alliance with our clients’ teams, we identify and help maintain the best course to reach their objectives. We provide the motivation and coordination to ensure that the crews have the power and rhythm to achieve the goals. Like the coxswain of a boat, we can see the destination because we have done this before.

This analogy gives us our name – Coxswain Alliance – and the certainty that our work will always be in your best interests. Because when we are on the same boat, we are all focused on the same goals.

Sector Experience

Experienced Management Consultants

Unlike many firms with a narrow scope of expertise, our team offers you decades of management consulting experience across a broad range of industries and functional areas. Guided by your business objectives and their knowledge, our consultants work with your people to develop and implement a tailored optimization solution.

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Industry experience

  • Financial Services, IT and Human Resources
  • Mining and Mining Production Operations
  • Logistics and Distribution
  • Manufacturing, heavy and light
  • Utilities
  • Healthcare
  • Higher Education and Training
  • Services and Retail
  • Hospitality

Functional experience

  • Operations and Operations Management
  • Planning and Scheduling
  • Asset Management / Maintenance and Engineering
  • Call Centre Functions
  • Back Office Functions
  • Workforce Planning
  • Sales Management and Effectiveness
  • Supply Chain & Procurement Management

As such we offer

  • Strong project management skills.
  • Planning for and commencing business improvement activities.
  • Process documentation and analysis, using a range of methodologies including 6 Sigma and Lean.
  • Business process improvement – eliminating ‘waste’, becoming and staying lean.
  • Development and installation of management tools and techniques to support decision-making and improve performance.
  • Organisational effectiveness – closing the gap between strategy and implementation.
  • Change management – guiding real and sustainable change.
  • Strong and compelling workforce engagement approaches.
  • Leadership consulting – challenging conventional thinking.
  • Strong education and training, underpinning improvement programs.
  • Coaching with consulting – supporting individuals, teams and organisations.
  • Enabling a culture of continuous improvement.
  • Supply chain improvement – unlocking supply chain thinking.
  • On a personal note, it has been one of the most influential and impactful encounters I’ve had in my professional journey to date.

    Silke O’Callaghan - Director of Education & Training - HETI
  • We have had to do the huddles and check-ins in a different and more creative way, in our current environment, but it is what provides the structure to focus on priorities and ensure at the beginning of the week we all understand what needs to be done. It has made life easier.

    Senior Manager - Assessments
  • The consultants worked with me and my management team. It was a genuine partnership and we formed a strong bond. Never did we feel that something was “being done” to us or we were being told what to do, but rather we were working on the business together for an improved result.

    National Customer Service Manager - Insurance Sector
  • A Coxswain program delivers many great things, but most valuably it dedicates 90+% of the elapsed time to managing the change. No change manager and fancy comms. people either. Coxswain Alliance works on the behaviours of leaders, and coaches them closely so they can maintain the change. An LSS practitioner isn’t generally a strong manager of change.

    Head of Productivity and veteran Lean-Six Sigma (LSS) Practitioner - Financial Services Sector
  • The benefits, be it short term or long term are worth the journey for any business and its employees at all levels.

    Division Manager - Asset Services Division, Wentworth Community Housing
  • There were many times I challenged the changes that were recommended but this was never a problem. We had open and honest conversations and, more importantly, all the changes I have made to my business have been for the better.

    Claims Enquiry Team Manager - Insurance Sector
  • The Coxswain Alliance team throughout the project have enabled the diverse teams in Finance and Corporate Services to clearly identify their outcomes, their challenges and areas for continuous improvement.

    Chief Financial Officer - Wentworth Community Housing
  • Our MOS has been great in helping us manage remote working. If we didn’t have all this in place, we would be lost. The results probably would have gone south. Instead we increased productivity.

    Senior Manager - Assessments
  • Possibly the best thing about MOS is that it makes people leaders into really effective people leaders, and that is something I think will keep paying dividends for many years to come.

    Manager, Labs Service Desk - Insurance Sector
  • The work with Coxswain has helped consolidate internal systems and practices into a much more synchronised and scheduled operating rhythm that has now driven the Asset Division to become much more structured and disciplined in the way in which we manage daily, weekly and monthly operations.

    Divisional Manager, Asset Services Division - Wentworth Community Housing
  • It has been over a year since our business finished the MOS program and the ongoing benefits realised from the program have been maintained and in some cases improved. The 14-week program is an outstanding leadership program to improve operational efficiency, leadership capability and business acumen.

    Executive Manager - Wealth Management Sector
  • Dan and Lain were extremely engaging and hands on right from the beginning and were genuinely interested in understanding the Social Housing industry as well as the community we serve on a day-to-day basis.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • I particularly appreciated & valued your engaged & engaging style of consultancy. The impact & learning, particularly for the Team Leaders, was & is palpable. I thank you so much for supporting them with new ideas, tools & the motivation to do things differently, think more broadly & reflect on how they can change & improve their own & collective management work practices. Their confidence, growth & progression in the management framework is a joy to watch.

    Annie McCabe - Housing Manager - Homes North Community Housing
  • I cannot recommend Coxswain Alliance enough, it has truly been a life changing experience and the skills I have gained will go with me for the rest of my career.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • Working with Coxswain Alliance gave me access to highly skilled and motivated specialists who taught me new ways of working and the science behind their decisions. They provided support and training so that I was able to actively drive change and improvement within the organisation.

    Operations and Capability Manager - Insurance Sector
  • My team are happier, they have more confidence in my ability to make correct decisions and we are achieving better outcomes for our clients which is what it is all about.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • I want to thank the Coxswain Alliance people for working closely with me to understand what we were trying to achieve. They were patient, never made us feel stupid and, most importantly, understood our business.

    Claims Enquiry Team Manager - Insurance Sector
  • From the team’s perspective, they like the planning and being able to check what they have to do. We can therefore plan effectively and it has reduced time and provided a lot more focus on productivity.

    Senior Manager - Compliance, Governance and Forensic Accounting
  • The level of information helped the conversations around productivity and kept focus on what was important. The Operating Rhythm was good to be able to talk to the data on a trend basis and improved the style and flow of the conversations.

    Senior Manager - Workforce Planning
  • Many people are dubious when they hear the word “consult” and are concerned about any actual change occurring; they need not be because the results we have got speak for themselves.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • I went into this program with an open mind, but sceptical, in the end I am a better leader, coach and person, with clear streamlined processes and procedures in place at the workplace and an organised schedule at home.

    Kellie Dunning - Operations and Team Coordinator - Hunter Water
  • Coxswain’s honesty and unlimited energy was incredibly helpful and infectious. I can see the impact on my team as they start to say, “we did it ourselves, all we needed was a little coaching.”

    General Manager, Operations - Manufacturing Sector
  • The Coxswain project helped us increase real time visibility of our progress and to focus on improving our success rate. Tools such as the Visual Management Boards have made us more nimble and responsive to meet short term challenges. Better tracking and reporting tools mean we can now measure the impact of new interventions or service models.

    Divisional Manager - Community Services Division - Not-For-Profit Sector
  • Working with Coxswain Alliance has not only been extremely beneficial to the business but also inspiring and useful for one’s own professional learning and development.

    Silke O’Callaghan - Director of Education & Training - HETI
  • We saw a 90% increase in the productivity. This meant more customers received outcomes. Some had been waiting years. As we produce more outcomes, during this difficult time, it provides them with additional money, shows we care and can help manage our reputation.

    2IC - Remediation Assessments Team
  • We couldn’t have introduced the MOS without the drive, clarity of process and experience that came with the Coxswain Alliance representatives who embedded themselves as virtual staff members within my team (and our organisation) over a significant period of time. They we amazing to work with and we learned so much from them. They worked hard and developed relationships across the organisation at all levels. Any scepticism over whether this would work in our context was soon quashed. The business transformation is such that we sometimes wonder how we ever did our business effectively before MOS.

    Head of Business Improvement - Financial Services Sector
  • Dan and Lain empowered me to be a better leader by giving me the resources, advice and tactics to lead from the front and be respected by my team which has changed my entire work life and has even trickled into my personal life outside of the organisation.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • My introduction to MOS took my leadership to a new level as I developed an operating rhythm that drove process efficiencies across my business. I was able to identify lost time and implement service improvements as a result of the information I now understood how to use.

    Head of Servicing Operations, Wealth Management - Financial Services Sector
  • I feel far more engaged with my frontline workforce, and the entire team now have a sense of ownership and personal responsibility to achieve our production targets.

    Adam Blake - Production Supervisor, Overburden - BHP Billiton
  • Strategically, my team have a clearer focus on the longer term goals and the desired outcomes; operationally we have become more efficient with our time management and allocation of work; culturally we have become more aligned through transparency and accountability; and personally I feel that I have become a more effective leader in the midst of much change and uncertainty.

    Reporting Manager - Insurance Sector
  • As a case manager, the speed of the turnaround time for an assessment is faster. This was done with better quality and not just quantity. I was able to close more assessments every week.

    Senior Case Manager - Remediation Assessments
  • Since the consult began we have empirical evidence to show that those presenting as homeless are being housed faster, with more compassion, care and support than ever before. This evidence has been extremely motivating for both myself and the team and we are celebrating the big and little wins each and every day.

    Nicholas Grimes - Team Leader - Client Service Housing Options - Homes North Community Housing
  • The MOS process made sure the leaders and staff were involved and there was complete transparency in developing the metrics and processes. High interactivity during the planning phase through the huddles, and because we had the visibility of the plan daily, if things were not going as expected, we were able to adjust them quickly via the huddles in real time.

    Senior Manager - Operations
  • The detailed analysis by leaders and improved capability around judgement and critical thinking has resulted in operational performance improvements of over 20% year-on-year. It is an intensive 14-week, program that challenges the capability of leaders. However, the benefits for leaders and their career development are invaluable.

    Executive Manager - Superannuation & Investment Services Provider

Connect with Coxswain Alliance

Release the untapped efficiency and effectiveness that resides within your organisation. Contact us for a complimentary initial consultation.

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