Business Strategy and Planning Case Study

Bill Warner Thursday, January 03, 2008

Business Strategy and Operating Plan for a Mature Company

Situation: A well established and successful information technology implementation services company serving the pharmaceutical development industry had reached a pivotal point in its sales growth at $10M in annual revenue. The company’s sales growth was flattening, several business expansion opportunities had passed it by and the management team didn’t seem to be able to achieve results in both sales and customer support.

Engagement: Paladin and Associates’ business consultants were engaged to help the CEO perform a complete review of its business and operational strategy, and make recommendations on how the company can get back on a high revenue growth track. In a facilitated session with the top executives of the company, a complete review of the company’s current strategy was performed along with the operational issues they all saw in the execution of that strategy. One-on-one interviews were conducted with each of them in order to assess the effectiveness of the entire executive team.

The findings fully explained why the company was struggling and indicated the actions that had to be taken:

  • The sales team had exhausted their personal contacts for business referrals and there was no effective lead generation program in place
  • The sales people were going after business in markets that they did not understand and had no particular value proposition for winning business
  • Nearly half of the sales force was not making their quota, mainly because they did not really know how to conduct an effective sales process
  • Competition in two of the sales regions was hiring away their best people
  • Two major acquisition opportunities were missed because the executive team did not have a consistent view of how to win in the marketplace
  • Over a dozen customers had stopped doing business with them because of software quality problems and late deliveries

A set of recommendations was put in place to do the following:

  • Paladin created several new lead generation programs for the company, while the company identified a new experienced marketing executive who was later brought into the company to manage all marketing programs
  • Two of the regional sales executives were replaced with much more seasoned sales executives
  • Several strategic planning sessions were held that served to get the entire executive team on the same page and to identify acquisition targets that would help them strengthen specific regional organizations
  • A new head of engineering services was brought into the company to establish tighter implementation process control
    Result: The sales growth was back on track in six months. Two acquisitions were identified and one was executed in nine months. The reconstituted executive team now meets frequently in order to establish the necessary teamwork to consistently drive the business.

Summary: Rapidly growing businesses frequently reach plateaus that are defined by their ability to manage their current business situation. If they do not make changes as they grow, these plateaus will halt company growth. Successful companies foresee these plateaus and effectively identify the business process changes that are needed to go beyond the plateau.

Filed Under:



Bill Warner is the Managing Partner of Paladin and Associates, a business consulting firm in the Research Triangle Park area of central North Carolina, and is the Chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network with over one hundred members throughout the southeast.