30_SH_June 24/5/07 08:49 Page 31
Business Turnaround ■
example trouble-free operations – this meant
that after-sales care was much more important
than the initial sale and installation phase. We
were also able to establish the precise needs
of each individual key account customer. We
measure our success via some simple KPIs
including an independent telephone customer
satisfaction survey after every key account
project.
The second crucial area is people. It is
important to decide what kind of culture you
want in your business. Above all, we wanted
to create ownership, where people care about
the business and actively contribute to its
success. Creating this is all about leadership;
we were clear that as a management team we
define the culture of the business. We spent a
lot of time and effort communicating our
strategy and ideas and getting feedback from
everyone to make sure our plans were the best
they could be.
Inevitably some people could not, or would
not, fit in with how we wanted to work – they
had to go (give me the right attitude over the
right experience every time!). If you want all the time. We set each team overall history! We told ourselves that we were doing
people to take responsibility, then you have to financial targets in terms of sales volumes, the right things and that the results would
be very clear about what you expect of them margins, and so on. come, and after some short-term pain we were
and where they stand. So we issued everyone By focussing all members of the team on a proven right.
with a written accountability, and set up common set of goals we broke down the inter- Our biggest mistake was to overlook the
monthly reviews of their performance against departmental barriers almost overnight. Each best performing part of our company, the
it. team have created their own business service business. In service, we do a great job
Then there are processes to manage. development plans as if they were the of maintaining and repairing our customers’
Customer focus and a great culture is not directors of their own company. They also doors, 24/7, thus keeping their operations
enough. In any competitive environment, and have their own monthly P&L providing flowing. Back in 2005, the service business
especially in a turnaround situation, the need complete transparency of all financial data. was, by comparison with the rest of Crawford,
for tight control over sales, operations and They each have a monthly business review performing very well. We therefore adopted
finance cannot be over-emphasised. We with the senior management team to track the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
worked hard with our people to map out the their progress against their activity plans as However, in focussing so much management
optimum way of carrying out every aspect of well as the results achieved. effort on the rest of the business, we allowed
our business to achieve the results we wanted, We replaced individual bonuses and service to plateau and quickly become
and then backed this up with a ‘lessons commissions with a profit share scheme based overtaken by other units. The lesson is: you
learned’ process. For example, as we on a single result: the net profit of the whole can’t ignore any area of the business – every
developed we still occasionally let down company. This means that everyone knows part needs to develop, even in a crisis.
customers; the difference was that when we what is expected of them personally for their By contrast, the thing we did best was to
did so, we held our hands up, fixed it quickly, team to succeed, and what their team need to stick unwaveringly to our strategy.
and then took time out to understand what achieve for the company to succeed. Throughout our many highs and lows, we
went wrong and what changes we needed to The change in attitude has been quite stuck to our vision and values with
make to prevent a recurrence. remarkable, with the result that in our first full enthusiasm and optimism. If you are really
year we have hit our targets and are already determined to get something done, and you
Restructuring to support the strategy back in profit. Our working capital has halved, persevere when things are tough, people will
Having determined a broad strategy to our order intake is 60% up, and most stick with you, and you will win out in the
develop the business, it was clear that our importantly we are securing repeat business end.
existing structure needed to be changed to from our key accounts. And of course our
promote our desired way of working. In staff, many of whom have remained loyal What next?
addition, we needed to make some difficult through some extremely tough times, are As for the future, we plan to double the size of
but necessary head-count reductions to cut our sharing in our success. our traditional business over the next four
costs. We took out the middle management years and expect that profits will grow even
layer to keep us (the senior management Problems along the way faster than sales. We will soon regain our
team) in touch with what was really going on Not everything has been plain sailing. While position as UK market leader. Beyond our
and in daily contact with customers. We then we were refocusing people on the activities original aspirations, we are already moving
formed cross-functional business segment that we believed would bring medium- and into Ireland and are starting to look at new
teams, one for each of our target markets. long-term results, our immediate performance markets at home. When you have a good team
Each team includes sales, estimating and suffered severely as people stopped doing of people, with real customer focus and solid
operations people. This allows each person to their normal business. The consequence was business processes in place, anything is
become an expert in their field, as they deal that in my first quarter in charge, I presided possible.
with the same customers and technical issues over the lowest order intake in the company’s www.crawfordsolutions.com
www.PressOnShD.com
June 2007 ShD 31
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68