Highlights
- After years of losses, brought the Company to sustainable profitability within 6 months
- Grew the order book from 2X annual revenue to 6X
- Increased the sales pipeline to 12X annual revenue with a > 50% close rate
- Rebranded the Company
- Established business planning, forecasting, budgets, and a performance management system
Background
Founded in 1948, with a deserved reputation for quality, the Company had been experiencing declining revenue and incurring losses for more than six years. Its sales had stalled and it had many operational and management challenges.
Moreover, at the outset of our engagement we were informed by senior management that in order to stem the negative cash flow they wanted to close down a line of business that actually had great strategic potential.
Business Challenges on Arrival
- Stagnant growth along with material operating losses
- Minimum investment over many years in systems, people, and processes resulted in a dearth of management information and unreliable cost data, no planning capability, and an unmotivated workforce
- Tired and non-strategic brand image
- Outdated marketing materials and inadequate demand creation efforts
- High quality sales team was very frustrated by the lack of support from senior management and other areas of the Company
- ERP system which needed to be completely rebuilt while still using it to manage operations
- Culture in which good people believed they had to accept the status quo and were not empowered to make the right decisions
Actions Taken
- Aggressively went after new business opportunities
- Conducted a costing study to understand actual margins by product and modified pricing (both up and down according to the product), as necessary, both to ensure profitability and to be competitive with the market
- Introduced performance management system to have metrics-based management for every functional area of the Company
- Tracked KPIs and instituted dashboards for every department
- Built business model that allowed for accurate forecasting. Established departmental P/Ls and budget.
- Effected a culture change process, with a focus on accountability and responsibility
- Invested in engineering and production to improve on-time delivery and quality
- Initiated project to rebuild the ERP system, ending Company’s reliance on a myriad of ad-hoc Excel reports developed from unreliable and corrupt data sources
- Redesigned and relaunched entire company website which reinforced new branding and provided a platform for a robust content marketing strategy
- Developed and deployed content marketing strategy, event sponsorships, social media campaigns, digital advertising and other integrated marketing programs to build awareness and generate leads,
- Planned and executed Company presence at regional and national trade shows and conferences with integrated communication plan – before, during and after the event;
Results
- Became cash flow positive and profitable on a sustainable basis
- Grew the order book from 2X annual revenue to 6X
- Increased the sales pipeline to 12X annual revenue with a better than 50% success rate at closing opportunities
- On-Time Delivery improved from under 70% to 92%
- Quality: first pass yields increased to over 90% and COPQ was reduced materially
- Repaired/improved customer relationships
- Implemented new ERP system
- Rebranded the Company as the technology innovator in aerospace sensors
- Changed the culture to be collaborative and performance oriented with a motivated workforce