The Story Behind the Achievement
The story of Turner and “
” at the Woodworking and Furniture-Making College
This year, we’ve been named the No. 1 strategy consulting firm and have the highest client satisfaction rating of all consulting firms. What lies behind this achievement—both ours and that of our clients? In the series “The Story Behind the Achievement,” we sit down with Marijke van Kampen from the Hout- en Meubileringscollege (HMC). How did Turner help professionalize the HMC’s “stores”? And what does that say about our approach?
What exactly is the Woodworking and Furniture College?
“The HMC is a vocational school specializing in woodworking, furniture, and interior design. Every year, we train about 4,000 students to become passionate, creative, and entrepreneurial professionals. It’s a truly inspiring environment. I myself once completed a program there to become an interior design consultant. After that, I chose the Facility Management program at a university of applied sciences, specializing in Procurement. It’s really nice to be able to apply this knowledge at my old school now.”
The student is coming back to school—how nice! And what exactly is your role at the HMC?
“I’ve been a procurement advisor since July, a new role within the organization. I’m responsible for all procurement at both the tactical and strategic levels. This requires extra attention because the HMC has grown, and we now need to put even more of our procurement out to tender at the European level. It’s also a great opportunity to professionalize our procurement: by documenting procurement policies, creating a contract registry, and reviewing procurement processes. Against this backdrop, Marga Severs, our Director of Staff Services, asked if I would like to work with Turner to oversee the store optimization project.”
What kind of stores are we actually talking about?
“We do a lot of project-based work here: a piece of furniture, a model, a window frame. Students and instructors can purchase materials for these projects at our stores on our campus locations. We operate the stores on a nonprofit basis, so that it remains affordable and feasible for students to bring their dream projects to life. But as you can imagine, we go through a lot of materials in a single school year.”
Marijke van Kampen, Procurement Advisor at the Hout- en Meubileringscollege
Clear. And what role did Turner play in this?
“We embarked on a brief but effective process with organizational consultants Fred Conijn and Femke van den Wall Bake. They spoke with everyone involved, including teachers, store managers, and the finance department. Fred and Femke shared their findings during a workshop. It was an excellent session: because they had mapped out all the processes, roles, and responsibilities, we were able to gain a shared understanding of the big picture. And we could immediately dive deeper into the bottlenecks in small groups. They guided us well as a group, helping us understand the various processes and each other’s roles within them, while also keeping us focused. I also really appreciated seeing how the different departments engaged in dialogue with one another and gained insight into each other’s processes.”
And then what?
“In a second session, Turner presented five key priorities that will help resolve those bottlenecks. They were immediately well-defined. Each priority has been assigned an owner who will take charge of the corresponding actions. A number of actions were implemented immediately by the Store Managers and a Finance staff member. That’s how, together with Fred and Femke, we really got things moving within a few weeks.”
What was it like to work with our team?
And what about that ultimate goal: what improvements will there be in the stores?
“With this new way of working, we’ll collaborate more actively with teachers to better predict what supplies will be needed throughout the school year. This will allow us to purchase more efficiently: make better agreements, take advantage of volume discounts, and ensure that orders are placed on time. In addition, we can better spread out the crowds in the stores themselves. Instead of sending all students to the stores at once at the start of the school year, we’ll do so in phases. This way, we keep it manageable for us as an organization and affordable for the students.”
Turner is number 1 on the MT1000 list. What’s the story behind this impressive achievement? We’d love to tell you more.
Typical Strategy = Execution
Fred Conijn: “It’s nice to hear how positive Marijke is. I think it helped that we kept coming up with suggestions: ‘We think the process works this way—is that right?’ and ‘We think these should be the key priorities—what do you think?’ That way, the group can focus on the exceptions and the bottlenecks that really matter. Then things quickly become concrete, and that kind of process actually generates a lot of energy. That’s exactly what Als Turner stands for when it comes to Strategy Execution.”
Femke van den Wall Bake: “This was actually a classic Operational Excellence project— my favorite kind of assignment. Working together to examine the entire chain and reduce ‘waste,’ as it’s called in the Lean method. I think HMC has taken a great step forward in professionalizing its stores. I hope the impact of this project will soon be felt by faculty and students, as well as by everyone involved in this process. And that they’ll be better able to collaborate on further improvements going forward.”
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