Ninety Nine
The Drivers of Organizational Excellence

An organization’s culture is spotlighted during pivotal events, like a transition from entrepreneurial management to professional management, a merger, or when a company’s values require rethinking or reinforcement. A strong corporate culture inspires company-wide growth, innovation, and engagement. But accomplishing this is a monumental task that requires coordination among multiple teams and choosing the most appropriate methods of implementation.

Ninety Nine, a consultancy specializing in organizational development and corporate culture, makes it easier for organizations by facilitating culture management using empiricallyvalidated tools.

“We follow a philosophy of focusing on the client’s needs, understanding their business, and then applying our expertise to help implement a culture intervention in the desired direction,” says Ivaylo Iliev, Managing Partner of Ninety Nine.

After assessing the client’s organizational culture and the gaps between their current and desired culture, Ninety Nine strategizes with senior executives on how to address the pressing issues, and creates a plan for culture management. The plan is then executed parallel to the organization’s workflow, using its staff as a driving force. Ninety Nine’s American partner, Management Systems, pioneered and empirically validated the methodology and tools used in the cultural transformation process.

How does this approach look like in practice?

When a long-standing client of Ninety Nine decided to further its organizational development by defining its culture values, as the first step, Ninety Nine assessed the existing culture and the aspects of it that contributed to the company’s success. After the value framework was set and validated against strategic goals, the culture rollout began. Ninety Nine’s consultants trained people from within the company to deliver the rollout workshops, thus building the internal capacity of the client and furthering people’s involvement. Ultimately, there was an increased awareness of company culture and a noticeable shift in employee engagement.

Ninety Nine’s expert-led team helped the client build their internal capacity by training the management on how to use tools like value communication, symbols of culture, leadership’s behavior, the company’s onboarding, and performance management to manage, enhance or transform culture.

Helping organizations redefine their values and build a managerial capacity is only part of Ninety Nine’s work. For a major project involving the merger of two large organizations, the company was challenged to examine each organization’s culture and compare them. This helped the merged entity’s leadership understand the differences in the cultures and identify areas of improvement. This assured they could effectively lead the new organization without any cultural difficulties interfering with the process.

The transition from an entrepreneurship to a sustainable, successful company is another instance that showcases Ninety Nine’s specialty in organizational transformation. Applying Management Systems’ methodology for diagnosing and overcoming the “growing pains”–symptoms of delayed organizational development–it help organizations plan and execute changes on all levels, like strategy, positioning, business model, operational and strategic management, and organizational culture, to increase the chances of long-term business success.

Ninety Nine offers great value for any business looking to transform its culture and guarantee its values are practiced. As a leading expert in organizational consultancy in Bulgaria, it has good prospects of taking its ten plus years of experience to the international scene in South and Eastern Europe.