Gen Ford

Bio

Ithaca’s service offering is to ensure the survival and growth of other businesses – by cutting their costs, improving their service AND, most importantly, meeting their strategic objectives. Setting up a business to advise and help other businesses optimise their strategy, structure and operations is, I think, a big step. I took that step in early 2001. I was motivated by a burning desire to create and deliver something a little different – and definitely better – than what I had seen and experienced myself during many years of corporate trouble-shooting. I had often worked with external consultants on major change projects and a number of questions came back to me time and again… “Why do organisations – and especially consultants – often make the solutions more complicated than the problem?” To me the simplest answers were usually the best… and definitely the easiest to implement and sustain. I wanted to create a business that would do that – the first reason for Ithaca. “Why do most consultants charge by the hour or day – surely that means I am paying for their inefficiencies? I could not understand why organisations hiring consultants actually accepted this. I wanted to create a business that charged appropriately for the benefits delivered and value added – the second reason for Ithaca. Why was information technology the driver in optimisation projects, often being used to support poorly organised processes and structures? I didn’t see the point in imposing information technology systems on top of messy business processes and structures – as Bill Gates said – giving us mistakes at the speed of light! Yet 80 percent of projects still take that approach – and end up failing to meet any of their objectives. I believe in getting the processes and structure right first – then selecting the RIGHT information technology system and other resources to support those – the third reason for Ithaca.