How to Develop a Market Niche

Case Study Project Description

After the dot-com bust, the market was flooded with website designers. Our client, a website design firm, needed to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Project Problem

Web designers have to be both technically on the cutting edge of software but also be part marketing geniuses, writers, designers and project managers. Many companies cobble together these talents from outsourced support. This company had all the talent in its two founders. But they needed to develop more than their talents: they needed to become known to specific industries and focus on becoming known for resolving issues specific to that industry. They also needed to be known for more than just website design, and to develop a leadership team able to build and sustain the company at a higher level of sophistication.

Solution

The first challenge was to help the management team uncover their unique talents and abilities so that they could innovate a new market niche. The second was to help them transform their business model, allowing management to see the company’s full potential. Customized learning events showed them how to develop a vision and reframe their role as a service-based business.

After three months, their new vision began to emerge: to be a trusted collaborator able to take complex information and give it organization and clarity. The management team now leads collaboratively and uses their vision to guide decisions and actions. To identify the right industry to focus on, they took their knowledge of Canada’s supplements and nutraceutical laws and offered their services to US manufacturers wanting to enter the Canadian market.

Result

They were then able to be a one-stop of knowledge, design and website support for an industry that was expanding dramatically. From product labeling to web design and market launches, the company started to become known in this market place.

The Boss Blames Others

Case Study Project Description

A mid size professional service company had a senior manager who was not trusted by co-workers or her direct reports. While she had been there for many years, her performance was difficult to assess and appeared to be on the decline. The owner requested that we discover what was at the root of the mistrust and collect information from all parties.

Project Problem

Employees and peers suggested her tendency was to obfuscate requests for status reports on her work. She regularly missed deadlines and assigned fault to others. It emerged that she had withheld critical information from people to appear “in the know”. In discussions, she tended to embellish stories about other people or ascribe motivation to others that was not present.

Solution

The owner initially retained us to work with this individual.  We worked with her to quickly move beyond seeing herself as “the problem”. Her progress was swift, and the other management team members saw the changes and wanted to know what she was learning that they didn’t know. The process was expanded to include the rest of the management team.

We used our challenging form of one-on-one coaching to discover what was behind the adversarial approach. Her style over the years had been to assume control was needed and that if certain jobs weren’t done, the company fortunes would decline. She had the owners interests at heart, she said. As the years went by and new people came into the company as it grew, in her mind her role and therefore her sphere of authority appeared to be diminishing. In the beginning, when the company was small she had to wear many hats and received a lot of acknowledgement and gratefulness from the boss.

Now, with so many more people to take on the roles, her power and control had to be shared. This perceptual decline in value to her boss led her to be resentful of others. In an attempt to regain this control, she devised ways of working that to others appeared unproductive and mean-spirited.

We helped her to understand the dilemma she had set up for herself in not acknowledging her own contributions for herself. She soon began to see that the naturally evolving state of the company was the reason she had less power and control, rather than any one being against her.

Results

As she let go of these perceptions, she was able to become productive and conciliatory again to the staff. It took time for others to change their approach to her as lack of trust is not eliminated over night. In time, as she continues to apply her Smart Team tools, the office will see her as an important part of the company’s growth.

We Can’t Fire Him, We Need Him

Case Study Project Description

With 17 years in a vital lead role of multi-million enterprise, the executive team could not afford to let the man go. Yet he was alienating all their department heads with is punishing style and ‘gotcha’ attitude toward their work. He needed to be part of the strategic team, not the guy finding every fault.

Project Problem

What’s the best way to deal with difficult employees? Fire them? Hope they quit? Companies today spend thousands of dollars letting people go and thousands more finding and training new employees. Or they spend everyone’s patience waiting for the person to get the hint or just leave.
There is no guarantee that the new people will be any better ‘fit’ than the old people.
We know that using our Smart Team tools can turn a difficult situation around. Turnarounds can save your company thousands of dollars, but people hesitate to invest in the process. How much does ignoring the problem or firing and rehiring cost?

The Executive Team was concerned that the leader of the audit department was becoming increasingly confrontational. He had a much different view of the audit function than what the team wanted. In his role, he was more adversarial than helpful, delivered withering assessments after the fact and viewed his role as that of watchdog. The CEO wondered if there was a way to get him to understand what they really needed from him and the audit function. The executive team thought the only solution was to fire him: an expensive exercise especially when finding and training a new senior auditor would take months and thousands of dollars.

Solution

The Executive Team thought that they just wanted the abrasive interactions to stop. But what they really wanted was an auditor who could help each of the product areas with strategy, prevention and advice. They wanted him to get involved at the beginning of their projects to prevent problems, not at the end with his criticism and blame. While there was some receptivity to understanding what it was that was contributing to the problems, they needed him to deliver his news in a collaborative fashion so that their teams could learn from him, rather than resist his advice.

Was it possible to change the way the auditor communicated, contributed and operated within the organization? Or was this just asking too much of a senior official already set in his ways?

In our view, if the individual is willing to change, then a turnaround is possible, given time. In this case, the auditor knew his job was on the line. He thought that the Executives were the ones with the problem. They were uncooperative and blocked him from doing his job effectively. They just wanted him to sugar coat everything and let it all slide. He thought their attitude was just part and parcel of the attitude towards auditors and resigned himself to the idea he would not be well liked, no matter what he did.

We anticipated this would be a four to six month exercise. Our first step was to meet with the auditor. Once he let down his resistance he was able to agree to engage at least to see what the process was about. Next we met the CEO and HR Vice President to collect their observations and to hear other sides of the story. Then, in order to further uncover and evaluate the root causes of the issues, a survey was sent to the senior executive team to get their feedback on the audit function and manner in which the leader and his team worked. This survey also doubled as a baseline measurement that would allow us to determine how he was progressing in his change effort over time.

Using our tools in a one-on-one coaching process, the auditor was challenged to see his blind spots. Simultaneously, we helped him to deconstruct how and why he might be getting these reactions from his colleagues. He began to see how his thought processes and roles that he assigned himself and others actually contributed to continual conflict and adversarial relationships. As he learned how to use the Smart Team tools he was able to not only see how what he said and how he thought about others caused the conflict, but he started to try out new approaches and perspectives to deal with his challenges.

To clean up unfinished business with colleagues, he was taught our Get Curious process and went to see each executive to find out what they really wanted. He created a new atmosphere within the Audit Unit that allowed the Executives to map out strategies with him for how the audit function could participate with their divisions in helpful and strategic ways.

Result

It was this individual’s willingness to take responsibility for his part in this chronic conflict and his decision to make changes that was the key to his success. Many of the executive team also realized and committed to learning to work with him in a more collaborative way. The final benchmark survey found that 90% of the executive team saw very positive changes in him and were getting what they needed from the audit function. We worked with him to build a plan for how he would sustain these changes over time. Throughout the entire process we met with the CEO and the VP HR to get their feedback and keep them apprised of progress.

It’s Not My Problem, He’s the Problem!

Case Study Project Description

The leadership team of a company recently acquired by a large multi-national was having fewer and fewer meetings. Members put off meetings, but managed to achieve results by meeting offline with each other. Cynicism was rampant. The corporate slogan was the butt of jokes. Yet they were the top producing division of the company. However, despite constant requests to expand in their territory the head office consistently refused them the capital or the time of day to talk about the expansion.

This fact sat like a lead balloon on productivity and creativity.

Of 12 people on the team, there were four separate small camps each with their own culture and competitive way of working. The camps often made derogatory remarks about the other groups and especially about one individual.

Project Problem

The head office was now demanding a cohesive expansion strategy that required they all get together to create and plan it. The regional manager attempted a first meeting, but when it erupted in insults and conflict, he asked the HR manager for a better solution. The company called upon us to see if we could unravel the problem. What we discovered through one-on-one coaching sessions was that each person blamed someone else on the team for not meeting their own unspoken expectations and standards. Since they couldn’t talk about what they wanted from each other, the resentments kept piling up.

Solution

Organizational change begins at the individual level and ripples out from there. We used our challenging form of one-on-one coaching and a series of assessments to help each member of the team uncover what was so difficult about meeting together. Many claimed that there was a bully in their midst. Others cited the wholesale changes made by their new owner without their feedback or input.

The ‘bully’ knew he was seen as such. His style of communicating was Cassandra-like, always suggesting doom and gloom around every corner rather than delivering why he thought there were problems. When he wasn’t heard, he resorted to insulting others using toxic humor in the vain hope that this approach might get his message across. He learned that he was not communicating his real concerns and that people were actually afraid of him. The day we helped him to discover how to speak to the team in a way that he could be heard was the turning point for this team to begin working together effectively.

For this turning point to occur, others had to put down their swords and take responsibility for their part in the blame game. We helped each person to focus on what they really wanted to achieve in their role, rather than on what they didn’t like that they kept recreating with the blame game. They then learned how to talk about these issues during meetings and how to use a collaborative process to share their ideas to create strategies and implementation plans.

Result

It took 10 months for their first group meeting to occur while we worked with each person individually. Fearful to trust themselves, they finally decided to attempt a meeting. We booked the team a two day retreat and managed expectations while we worked on a new vision for the entire team. After this meeting they embraced developing a new vision, breaking through old patterns and learned how to get what they needed from the head office by mentoring their direct reports up the ladder. Rather than being the black sheep in the conglomerate, after two years of re-designing how they worked together, the team finally go the funding and the go ahead for their expansion plan. At the end of the expansion they became the top performing brand and were seen as mavericks in the industry.

Selling a Business Case Studies

Why sell a business?

Our clients have myriad reasons.

One conglomerate bought several in a bundle and one of them did not fit their strategic direction. Another did want the responsibility of running it anymore.

When you are ready to sell there are suddenly a lot more things to think about than most owners would have ever imagined.

Getting Ready for Sale Case Studies

• If we want $8 million for our company when we sell it, what do we have to do now to get that price?
• Lame Duck or Worthwhile Investment?
• It’s Time to Sell

It’s Time to Sell

Case Study Project Description

An owner had spent ten years building a manufacturing company. He is struggling with growth and really liked the technical side of the business but wanted someone else to run the rest of the company and take it to the next level of growth.

Project Problem

How do you find the right partner and bring them in as an owner? Do you bring in investors? Do you hire professional management who manages you, the owner? Do you go public? Do you get bank financing for growth capital and equity financing from a new investor/partner?

Solution

The issues described are complicated for any business owner. As an owner, there is freedom to make decisions they way they want, and the trade off is keeping the status quo alive. Change is required. To bring in a professional manager means to let go of control as an owner but possibly enjoy larger shareholder returns brought by an able bodied team who wants to do what the owner doesn’t. By bringing in a shareholder partner, there are all kinds of chemistry and fit issues that money doesn’t necessarily cure. What works for one person in each of these scenarios might not work for other people.

Reviewing all the options with this owner, we explored the merits of each option including going public with a larger group of people. In each case finding someone who wanted to be in that business, had the financial capabilities and was good fit with the current owner proved difficult. Business plans were built, valuations done, opportunities presented but the right fit did not materialize. Standing aside for change is difficult when you’ve run the show the way you want for years.

Result

In the end, the owner decided to retain more middle managers who could build the market out, rather than trying to sell the company.

Lame Duck or Worthwhile Investment?

Project Description

This old-line manufacturer was acquired from it’s original parent company with several other consumer-based companies. The acquirer was in business to business products and wanted to re-sell the company as soon a possible.

Project Problem

When a large company gets acquired, this signals to the management team in the acquired company that change is about to occur. Many managers take this as an opportunity to leave. For this manufacturer, the entire top level of management left all at the same time. There was no one left at the helm and the acquiring company worked fast to second one of their executives to become the new president. But who was going to move into management operations? The new president went out to talk to the remaining employees and hand picked four middle managers promoting them to the top spots in the company. Their top selling sales person became the VP of Sales. The controller became the Group Manager. The manufacturing manager became VP of operations and a young woman in the marketing department who had a lot of creative ideas became the VP of Marketing.

In a company used to getting promotions based on seniority, the new president’s choices left a lot of disgruntled long time employees fuming on the sidelines. Was the company ready to be sold?

Solution

We were asked to come in and turn these new recruits into a leadership team who had to become responsible for chopping costs, shrinking the product line, staying competitive and forging a growth pipeline. The reward for doing all that? The team was told they would either be saved from the chopping block and kept as a unit for the conglomerate or spun out once again.

The team had no ability to work collaboratively. In this culture, the sales person had never visited the manufacturing floor. The people who made the product he sold did not know him. The marketing department had never gone to talk to the distributors who sold their product to understand the huge variety of target markets they worked with. The manufacturers had not talked to the distributors to see what types of products were in demand. The controller had never led a team or run a meeting. Collectively, they did not know how to make the decisions expected of them. The pressure was intense, the time frame short.

We worked individually and as a group with each, showing them how to change their attitudes and approaches toward building relationships across functional lines, with each other and with the market place. We challenged their thinking and entrenched methods of doing things in the same way and getting poor results. We focused on how to have the kinds of conversations that create rapport and results. Over a year period, this group of people dealt with downsizing, competitive threats, internal strife and the constant uncertainty about their future and found it in themselves to collaborate on all issues.

The manufacturing VP visited distributors. The VP of Sales got to know the guys on the factory floor. The marketing VP learned how to work with multiple target markets. The controller faced his limitations and steered the group through the quagmire of issues anyway.

Result

Within 18 months the team had achieved their goals. The conglomerate was impressed. They had turned the company around and now were prime candidates to be sold. This irony was not lost on the team. With the great results they were now an attractive business and yet faced an uncertain future yet again. The company was acquired quickly and the conglomerate achieved their return on investment. And in the end, history repeated itself: only one member of the leadership team stayed on with the new owner.

If we want $8 million for our company when we sell it, what do we have to do now to get that price?

Case Study Project Description

Two partners had built a sizeable operation catering to the booming construction market. Sales were double digit and growth was outpacing their ability to manage resources. There was a tight labor market and experienced people were in short supply.

Project Problem

The partners were nearing an age when they had to start thinking about succession planning. And frankly, the stress of keeping it all together without the right people was taking a toll on their health and their working relationship. What would it take to sell they wondered?

Their immediate problem seemed to be their frustration at the lack of self responsibility amongst their managers and site staff. Tempers often flared. Perhaps this was leading to the desire to sell?

Solution

We looked at their entire operation from the people issues right through to the way they estimated and sold jobs. Each year, despite increases in revenues and more jobs coming their way, the profit margin was slipping. We showed them how this fluctuating profit margin would affect the sales price. We were able to pinpoint the reasons for the fluctuations and began to set up a key performance indicator system. Reorganizing the company’s roles and responsibilities to get this information reported was critical. The reporting responsibility would be assigned to teams and individuals. A new incentive system would be awarded based on managers’ ability to produce the indicators in a timely manner.

On the people front, we challenged the way the senior managers and owners communicated and taught them tools to start making adjustments in their attitudes, reactions and styles. Managers started to learn how to work to their own strengths and focus on amplifying what they did do well. The reorganization opened up promotion opportunities and suddenly with good role descriptions and incentives, people within the organization were applying. The owners were coached in how to collect useful information and make decisions together while respecting each other’s differences and ways of working. They split up duties so that each played to their strengths.

Result

It will probably take 2-3 years for their profit margins to improve and show year to year consistency and growth and possibly four to seven years to grow the company to the level that would make it worthwhile enough for the price the partners want for it. They have settled into this realization and are already seeing improvement in staff attitudes and the way work gets done, which has brought down the stress levels considerably.

Variances are declining and the focus is on learning to build a better management system so that projects flow through the company in the most cost effective manner. The key performance indicators will soon give the owners the freedom to be away from the office more often as they will have critical decision making data. The management performance system will allow them to build trust and capability through the ranks so that they don’t have to be there all the time. These types of changes are exactly what an investor wants to see.

Cross-Border Integration Irritants: You Change First

Case Study Project Description

A Canadian retailer was bought by an American chain store in their first cross-border acquisition. Several years post acquisition, different policies, procedures and laws, combined with the parent company’s change in management and centralizing of operations, alienated the Canadian management team. The US company did not seem to understand that Canadian accounting was different as was the expectation of an apology when payroll didn’t take the differences in law into account. Tempers flared often and the Canadian team would give the US management lip service.

They were not working well as a team: everyone ran their own department and store and did their own thing. Conflicts also existed between team members as to how to run things, how to grow and how to work with the American parent.

Project Problem

To be seen as a division ready to take on future growth – and not be left behind – the management team needed to learn how to collaborate through change and conflict, deal with the American parent’s way of operating, and influence change with the US parent through communication rather than resistance. The Canadian company retained us to help them with making these changes, knowing that the US parent would not be participating in the process. Was it possible for one side in a conflict to do all the changing and achieve any better result?

Solution

First, the leadership team had to be willing to stop viewing the parent company and its managers as the bad guys. This perspective ensured they felt powerless to get the attention they wanted to develop their own strategies.

Next, the team had to learn how to set their own vision and then sell it up the ladder as a team, not just rely on their leader to do it for them. We facilitated several events and team coaching sessions to set this new way of working in motion so that each member of the team contributed effectively.

After a year of working on the attitudes and methods they had been using to work with the US parent, the day came when the President would be in town along with the Vice President of Development. The Canadian management team met with us concerned that they would be shut down again. We reminded them of their vision to be trusted with an expansion strategy and that they could do this. We worked through their fears and concerns and anger and finally this group of ten managers agreed on their goal in the meeting with the US parent: they would welcome them, listen to them and make their request for the expansion.

Results

The mood changed immediately. As the US leaders walked into the room, the Canadian team rose and shook their hands. Camaraderie ensued and a good feeling filled the air. The Vice President looked around the room and smiled. He started with saying how impressed he was with everyone and their Canadian operations. He noted their change in attitude and what a joy it had become to work with them He wondered allowed what they wanted to do next. “Give me a plan, guys. Let’s do something up here!” Shock ran through the room. They got their goal and they had not had to ask.

After several meetings with the parent company the team was given permission to proceed with an expansion plan. They had not seen themselves as able to get this project off the ground before. Now they are the examples to other divisions about how to expand territories effectively.

With their differences resolved, communication with the parent company became informative and resourceful rather than rebellious and adversarial. Within 18 months, the management team emerged stronger, now the star performer in the store chain and opened their new store location.

Maximizing the Value Post Acquisition

Case Study Project Description

An industrial product supplier purchased a much smaller entrepreneurial distributor of products. It seemed like a good deal at the time. Due diligence revealed they had a few cash flow problems but the buyer had the resources to remedy that. They had a fine team of fabricators and had identified a package solution the market seemed to like so they were not just selling one off products. The deal was done.

Project Problem

The smaller company had moved into a new facility before the acquisition. The buyer didn’t need that space and immediately decided to split the company in two, sending the fabricators to the central facility and sellers and managers to a satellite office. Suddenly, two people quit. The smaller company had been vertically integrated so the sales people were also the product expediters. Now with their fabricators 30 miles away, they couldn’t tell if their sales orders were being processed. Anxiety rose, sales declined and more people quit. Management had not put in a new process to help the new people adjust to the system. The manufacturing plant had not arranged for an expediter on their end to communicate with the sales people. Information fell through the cracks. To top it off, the top three sales people were all close to retirement age. Who would they pass along their knowledge to?

Solution

Management knew there were cracks in their acquisition integration system. Marketing, sales, product definition, product management and people integration were left to chance. We were invited to assist Kibo Ventures to help them come up with a better template and method of integration as well as resolve the problems of the current acquisition.

We interviewed all concerned and started to see where the road blocks were in the entire operation from sales through to installation. Communication was blocked across many departments and conversations about process improvement did not happen due to chronic interpersonal issues. The sentiment was that people should ‘just get with the program’ or ‘duke it out’ to make things work. A feeling of bleakness and resistance to change was in the mindsets of new and old employees alike.

We developed a new organizational chart and strategy for how the company could become a lot more customer focused and resolve some of the interdepartmental issues. New roles were created to take responsibility for areas that had previously fallen through the cracks including succession planning, knowledge transfer, training, sales support, product management and market development.

Result

Included in this package of services was a pre and post integration due diligence road map. The map defined the areas where questions needed to be asked to make a good investment decision and then identify the questions and strategies needed to integrate a new acquisition in such a way as to maximize rather than erode the value. The map points to the areas where value erosion has the biggest potential and where to explore the impacts of pending decisions so that contingencies and alternatives could be developed. The company is now implementing several of the role changes and has halted acquisitions for the time being so that they will have a better foundation for the next company to be acquired.

« Previous Page — Next Page »