How to (really) reorganise a company: case history no. 3, part II
Training
In part I we saw how a company with a turnover of about €40 million, which designs and delivers customer loyalty promotional campaigns for retail and pharmaceuticals, embarked on a thorough reorganisation. Now we get to the operational heart of the project: turning strategy into concrete results.
Case History #3 – Part II: the next step
Once Vision, Mission and strategic KPIs had been defined, it was time to move from analysis to action. We worked on the strategic levers, from which all the change initiatives arose:
- growth lever: the 7 degrees of freedom of the business, to expand market, offer and margins;
- cost reduction lever: eliminating activities that create no value, efficient outsourcing and streamlined production processes;
- organisational lever: review of structure, organisation chart, roles and company procedures;
- people lever: direct involvement of staff and alignment of skills with the new set-up, so that every function contributes actively to improving performance.
From strategy to day-to-day management
The strategic plan was translated into a 5-year business plan, broken down into an annual operating budget. The results achieved along the way are projected to year end with the rolling forecast, which measures the ability to reach the budget targets.
At the same time we introduced advanced cost accounting, moving from Zucchetti to SAP Business One: the contribution margin is broken down into its main components, and profitability can be read by customer, brand, key account and single campaign. The economic data became real decision-making tools.
Finance and sustainability
To keep growth and solidity together, a thorough analysis of treasury and operating cash flow was carried out, making financial commitments consistent with how the business was really going. To support investment, a basket bond was signed with Banca Intesa, a structured finance instrument backing the industrial plan.
Supply chain and digitalisation
The review of the supply chain brought immediate results:
- rotating inventories;
- lower supplier rates;
- digital integration of information systems between the company and its logistics partners.
Efficiency, traceability and control became distinctive features.
The final result
Thanks to the planning, control and operational review, the company was able to structure itself for growth and face the most ambitious phase of its development with solidity: the start of the listing process on Borsa Italiana’s AIM segment (now Euronext Growth Milan).
And afterwards
The twenty-four months are over, the relationship is not. We stayed on as fractional managers, leading controlling across all the group’s companies: in the meantime turnover has passed €100 million and the group has grown abroad, in EMEA and APAC.
An effective reorganisation is not just a management exercise but the building of a method for growing in a solid and sustainable way.
The case is also told on our website, on the fractional management page.