Revenue Growth and Innovation

The Company:

‍A large and geographically wide-spread manufacturing company.

The Challenge:

The company had done well in previous years, but their revenue and profits have recently been declining. We were tasked with:

1.    Reinvigorating the leadership

2.    Create a strategic collective mindset

3.    Develop innovation and streamline process for better profitability

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The issue was complex, and even insiders could not quite grasp the source of the problems. Hence, we decided on the 4key stages as described below.

Stage 1: On-The-Ground Insights

We conducted some case samplings where we made mystery-caller visits to a sampling of the company’s dealer network. We found out that the company’s products were not prioritised – either in their passive display positioning or the active sales activities of the dealers. Instead, it was found that other competing products were given priority.

We also conducted other analysis and reviews on The Company’s current processes and practices to develop key insights to contribute towards the other stages of our consultancy work.

Stage 2: Leaders’ Corrective Strategy Discussion

Since the operational leadership was scattered throughout the country, we decided to gather them together in one place to discuss corrective strategy, yes, but more importantly to uncover any hidden factors that were contributing to the downturn.

Stage 3: Profitability Consultancy

We analysed The Company’s landscape — both internal and external — to discover new approaches to stimulate sales and profit. This was achieved together with the company’s leadership so as to give the team ownership and motivation to drive the company’s revival. Ideas and innovations arising from discussions were facilitated with a profitability focus.

Stage 4: Inter-Departmental Collaboration

Through the analysis in stage 1, we were able to identify a key problem. The sales/marketing team had less-than-ideal communication with the manufacturing and product development guys. As such, valuable marketing intelligence was not passed back to the manufacturing arm. Similarly, key manufacturing information was not highlighted to the market/sales people.

For instance, there were features that the market was crying out for, but these were not communicated back to manufacturing. These features were easy to modify into the process, but were not done out of ignorance. As such, an easy opportunity was missed.

On the other hand, the main product had a brilliant feature that all the manufacturing people and some of the sales people knew about. But since the manufacturing division had not enthusiastically talked about it, the sales guys had missed its significance. Another wasted market opportunity.

These all happened because there was no framework for bi-directional communication on key issues. Hence we developed and customised a framework to address this gap and prevent future occurrences.

‍1.    Market-Centric Product Innovation‍

New product lines were developed with innovations based on the insights from the sales and marketing team alongside the technical expertise from the manufacturing team. This collaborative effort not only allowed for high-impact innovations that are desired by the market, but also with maximised profitability margins.

2.    Dealer Prioritisation of Company Products‍

Engagement structure and approach with dealers were re-evaluated and appropriate remedial actions were taken in order to encourage dealers to prioritise company products to the end-customers.

3.    Streamlined Manufacturing Framework‍

The manufacturing framework we devised between the manufacturing and sales department served a dual purpose – to inform the manufacturing division of market demands and trends and (ii) to keep the sales/marketing division aware of the latest cutting-edge features that the manufacturing division had come up with.

This framework was invaluable as it provided so much leverage to the manufacturing-sales relationship for future product development.

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4.    Leadership Revitalisation

When the collective leadership, through our process, realised that they were now being listened to, and their opinions and ideas were valuable to the company, the leaders became increasingly energetic and genuinely committed to the corporate direction and success.

5.    Focused Goals

The management came up with five key focus goals to drive and revive the company. The plan was mid-to-long term, with short-term measures to quickly come back to par. The process to arrive at these goals was extensive, with views heard from everyone, and healthy debate and disputes engaged in. This process honed the final goals to its most challenging while being mindful of existing and future resources. In essence, the goals were both exciting and achievable at a stretch.