Case Study #1: A Problem with People

Client: A $25 Million South Eastern US Medical Devices company.

Situation: Over the past 3 years, the client had suffered from decreased sales and loss of market share to new rivals in the market place. Sales leadership had grown accustom to enjoying exclusive contracts that were no longer impregnable and the sales force was inadequately positioned or equipped to thrive in this new environment. Furthermore, there was no substantial development of core leaders.

Solution: Innermetrix helped the leadership identify core competencies vital to successfully selling in this new environment, and for development of key leadership abilities. We then worked with them to determine Key Performance Metrics to drive performance towards new standards, and worked with them to improve their selection and development processes to ensure they have the right people, in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time.

Results: After four quarters, sales rose 25% with a retained earnings growth of 19%, equaling approximately $400,000.00 (top)

Case Study #2: A Problem with Operations

Client: An international billion dollar agricultural company with 110 farming operations and 11,000 employees.

Situation: For two years running they had experienced their worst financial years ever with huge losses, decreased morale and a growing sense of disillusionment in senior management. The core problem was that they had outgrown their existing ability to manage their operations, and the weight of their growth was collapsing in on them.

Solution: Innermetrix helped the business owners to develop a strategic understanding of the situation at hand, identified the key elements that were causing the disruption (e.g., insufficient cash flow to support the growing operations, lack of equipment, lack of management) and crafted a turn-around program to address these issues as quickly as possible. We broke the implementation of this turn-around strategy into 15 key deliverables, each with its own target for improving an operational issue that wasn’t performing up to par. Examples of these deliverables included: quality control, transportation logistics, finance, Human Resources training and Leadership development, Cost of goods, technical expertise in the form of life science experts, and more. The final piece to helping this client was helping them reframe their overall strategy to ensure that they didn’t find themselves taken by surprise again. While the operations were important, they were only symptomatic of an inadequate strategy that allowed the client to be prepared for the rampant growth that nearly did them in.

Results: The results were significant. Within 10 months (less than one growing cycle) they experienced their third highest crop yield in the company’s 23 years history. The efficiencies in output produced 43% growth which equated to approximately $1.3M. (top)

Case Study #3: A Problem with Acquisitions

Client: A Medium Sized Financial Services firm with $35 Million under management and 43 employees.

Situation: Our client had recently acquired one of its smaller competitors, and as in most mergers and acquisitions, it was actually detracting value instead of creating it. Poor due-diligence up front produced several key issues ranging from a negative impact on the acquiring companies brand, to human capital redundancies and cultural incompatibilities that were stressing the employees and reducing performance.

Solution: Innermetrix helped this firm identify the key variables that they had overlooked prior to the acquisition such as the impact the move would have for the customers of the acquired company and the acquiring company’s brand image. We identified and quantified the culture of both the acquiring company and the acquired company and the conflict was blatantly apparent at first glance. Finally, we helped the firm identify what key positions were “over-filled” and that there was a 20% reduction in personnel needed. Our consultation to the firm involved working with them to help restore their brand image through a series of dedicated marketing steps, we instituted a cultural development program to help merge the two opposing cultures and used a battery of assessment and performance metrics to help determine which personnel had the best fit with the new culture, demands of the job and natural ability to guide the workforce reduction process.

Results: The firm took two years to begin recovering from their missteps, but eventually they saw a cohesive culture form, a strong and positive brand image and the reduction in staff actually increased morale and performance. The firm credits the majority of their 21% growth in this time period to the work we did. (top)

Case Study #4: A Problem with Money

Client: An $18 Million privately held (physician owned) surgery center.

Situation: The founding shareholders of the surgery center wanted to bring new partners in to drive surgery and profit margins, but the value of the center had grown such that buy-in rates were too high and dilution of the founding shareholders value limited dropping share price. They also had no stock compensation plan for key management positions, which put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Solution: Innermetrix helped this client adjust the dividend policy for owners to keep more cash in the company and allow owners to see returns in a total equity and dividend model. We helped them build a profit-sharing model to offer management the opportunity to buy up a minority percentage and participate in shareholder returns, and we helped them restructure their capital to create leverage that increased value in the company which they in turn leveraged to develop an acquisition strategy that would add capabilities and more flexibility in their contracting ability.

Results: The surgery center added three new shareholders with a 5 for 1 share dilution split with no adverse effect on current shareholdings and grew their overall value 28% by reducing their cost of capital and risk by 30%. (top)