A $90 million food manufacturer had enjoyed great growth in previous years as demand exceeded supply but recently supply exceeded demand and the market had turned and the company needed to redefine how it approached the market and its customers. The new CEO realized the company needed a new process to develop new products, a longer term growth plan and a new approach to sales. He also needed these solutions quickly.

Growth Strategy Partners first conducted an assessment of its product development process and identified that the company didn’t have a process or any frameworks to develop new products. We quick implemented the best practice product development framework PACE within the company, developed a product development steering committee and established new product introduction guidelines for volume and profitability. We then facilitated the development of a long term strategic plan and dashboard using the Balanced Scorecard framework. During the planning process we helped the company realize they needed to transition from a product development core to a customer intimate one.

The third phase of the project was redefining how the company went to market. The company relied heavily on brokers to sell the product but needed more direct interactions with the customer. We facilitated the identification on which customers should be targeted and established approaches and goals to building these relationships. We also established goals and broker scorecards.

Historically the company had developed and released almost every product it conceived only realizing when introduced that it was not successful. With the new product development process the company has stopped 50% of its development efforts realizing with the new guidelines they would not be profitable. The company has also focused its resources on more successful products and launched them sooner. The strategic plan has helped guide goal setting and decision making allowing the company to focus its resources on critical success factors. It is believed this planning process has provided at least $250,000 in incremental profits and identified a 20% increase in production capacity. The new sales approach has allowed the company to first measure the success of its brokers and identify which ones to focus its resources on. New customers have also been obtained with this new process which translates into over $500,000 in new business for the company. As part of the sales effectiveness program we also completed the following:

• Established annual sales targets by product line and geography
• Developed a 12 month rolling sales forecast by customer by item by month by units and price
• Rationalized non profitable customers resulting in $350,000 in profit improvements
• Developed and managed a monthly sales meeting to review performance and establish go forward sales targets and pricing
• Re-introduced a CRM tool to improve management of longer term opportunities and the sales pipeline