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■ Business Turnaround
Turnaround or die...
Many mergers or acquisitions don’t go according to plan and not only fail to achieve the
expected benefits, but also create unforeseen problems. But Neil Davis, managing
director of Crawford UK, explains how a disastrous acquisition was turned around.
Our company manufactures, installs and effective closure of the Amber business, huge the upside, however, we had good products
services industrial doors and dock loading financial losses and total sales considerably and services, competitive prices, a reasonably
systems, employs just over 100 people and below that of the original Crawford business. buoyant market and some inherently good
turns over £15m a year. I believe the I joined the company in summer 2005 with a people. The underlying cause of virtually all
experience we have had, and the techniques simple mission: to quickly return the business of our problems was extremely poor
we have used to become successful, can be to profit, and then to recover our position as management and leadership.
applied to any under-performing business market leader. Once we had a clearly defined starting
unit or company, regardless of size and point, we set about creating a vision of where
sector. Formulating the recovery strategy we wanted to be. I worked with a slimmed
In this article I will explain how we created My philosophy on entering the business was down management team of just five people –
a recovery strategy for the business, including not to make quick changes, but to understand the real decision makers in the business. Our
the key areas we worked on, and how we clearly and dispassionately exactly where the over-riding goal was to achieve sustainable,
restructured the business and successfully business was, good and bad, and why things profitable growth, thus providing returns for
executed our plans. I will then talk about have gone wrong. When walking into a our shareholders, adding value to our
some mistakes we made along the way and company, it is quite easy to see the problems, customers’ businesses and creating
finish with our plans for the future. but even easier to overlook what is done well. opportunities for our people.
Firstly, a quick history. In 2002, Crawford To begin with, I just talked to every member Before we could develop our strategy we
was the leader in the UK industrial door of staff, listened intently to what they had to had to decide where the company should
market. The management at the time decided say, and I talked to customers, particularly compete. We decided to focus on markets
to expand by acquiring Amber Doors, a those we had lost (70 of our biggest 100 where we could position ourselves as the best
manufacturer of a complementary range of customers had stopped buying from in class, in terms of both quality and customer
products. Amber was a very successful and Crawford). I worked on the basis that where service, whilst offering excellent value for
fast growing company in its own right. This the staff and customer perception differed, the money. Our chosen market segments were
acquisition should have put Crawford way customer view was the correct one. logistics (warehousing, distribution centres,
ahead of the competition. However, the In summary, the situation was that we etc.), retail (food, cars, FMCG) and utilities
managers of the combined business failed to offered terrible customer service, our direct (waste, power, ports and aviation). We then
appreciate and handle the huge cultural and indirect costs were out of control, and we set about drawing up simple measurable plans
differences between the long established had a culture of fear, blame and infighting to become the leader in each of these markets.
market leader and its young entrepreneurial between departments. Most importantly,
sibling. nobody in the company would take any Key areas to work on
Three painful years later, the result was the responsibility for the situation we were in. On In my experience for a company to be
lastingly successful, it must be good at
managing three crucial areas: customers,
people and processes.
Managing customers means: to define
who they are (and which are the most
important); to understand exactly what they
need; to figure out how to provide it
consistently; and then to measure how you
are doing. For example, at Crawford we
defined a list of 90 key accounts (from an
existing customer base of 8,000
companies), all of course in our target
segments, and gave each a responsible
owner.
We were able to quickly identify
consistent customer requirements, for
30 ShD June 2007
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