Blueberry Business Group Ltd.

Baby, It's Hot Outside

2012-01-17T10:09:00.001-06:00

Food industry chief executives engage Blueberry when they want change. Something, Somewhere or Someone in the company is not producing the right results, or the right plan needs help getting started. By the time we arrive, we often find that mediocrity was tolerated for far too long and companies have fallen behind the hot, fast pace of the industry--requiring swift, sometimes uncomfortable, action to turn things around.

Maybe the CEO just didn’t notice millions of dollars in lost opportunity slipping through the cracks. Maybe he confined his attention to what’s going on inside the walls of the organization. Maybe she wasn’t alert to core products or business under attack by innovative competitors. Maybe he didn't realize the company was wasting time and money on ventures that have no real wings. Maybe she couldn't accept that a high profile executive was failing...because he's an executive with a big corporate pedigree. The red flags were there but the CEO wanted to know for sure, so he waited for a bigger flag. Then a bigger flag. Like a frog on a hot stove, he had a strong inkling to take a leap now, but bought into the line that results would come next quarter. Or the quarter after that. Or the quarter after that.

While market heat turns up yet another notch.

If a company isn't moving forward, it’s falling behind. Flat is the new decline.

What are CEOs waiting for? How long will they excuse underperforming areas of business without taking decisive--unpopular--action to get the company on the right track... especially a new track? Why is what’s not working allowed to continue? Remaining just one more day within the boundaries of yesterday will lead to big regrets tomorrow, I promise.

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."

It's up to you. To survive the incoming waves of change in the food industry, chief executives must tear off the blinders. What worked in 2011 is simply not going to work this year. Each new piece of business, every new innovation, every case sale must be won with a repeatable, sustainable excellence and expertise aligned with the rest of the market.

Slow industry? No. We've never seen it so full of opportunity--and risk. Some executives are invigorated by it; many are overwhelmed. Ralph Marston said, “You've done it before and you can do it now. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.” Insist on organizational renewal this year. Take a non-negotiable stand on performance and results from new, vibrant areas of the industry. Don’t create waves; create tsunamis. Break out of your company's walls to see what's happening on the outside and prepare now for what's coming your way, including never-before ways of engaging with customers and trading partners. Be alert to the biases, outdated attitudes and thinking standing in the way of opportunities right in front of you.

And finally, by all means, overhaul the protectionism and sacred cows that are sacred to no one but you.

It may be January, but Baby, It's Hot Outside. Our industry is and will continue to demand more from your company. Are you prepared to respond and deliver in 2012?

What do we do now? Here’s what.

2011-08-11T10:20:00.010-05:00

As recently as April of this year, glimmers of CEO optimism made food industry headlines. But economic events just over the past week remind leaders to prepare themselves and their companies for new rounds of risk, uncertainty, even opportunity.

Has your company factored a reasonable number of “what-if” scenarios into its strategic plans? Have you underestimated your company’s full exposure when industry and market fundamentals keep shifting?

Time to undertake a 90-day set of actions to avoid the paralyzing and potentially deadly, “What do we do now?” trap.

Despite what recent history has taught us about the impacts of rapid and unexpected turn of events, surprisingly few food industry firms incorporate risk scenarios into corporate strategy. Chief executives agree that the ability to predict the future and respond quickly to threats and opportunities is a crucial part of their job.

We don’t suggest making strategic planning and execution any more difficult than it already is, but gone are the days of a precise, single forecast with a narrow, single strategy. We recommend a simple risk scenario process that factor in three plausible outcomes: one optimistic, one pessimistic and one most likely.

Build a portfolio of moves, company and business unit models in response to relevant issues such as commodity cost volatility, availability of credit, competitive or customer consolidation, shifts in consumer patterns. Include big bets with large payoffs should opportunity arise.
Consciously and dramatically strengthen and safeguard the organization by building resilience across key areas. This includes undertaking a series of no-regret actions that pay off and serve your business well in any scenario.
Recognize the signals and warning signs that trigger scenario-based action when events unfold. Remain informed, vigilant and mobilized to expedite important new strategic decisions.
Leverage a steady flow of intelligence on key customer or industry segments to enable quick action. Pursue a clear-eyed approach to secure your company’s position in the emerging situation or environment.

Preparing yourself and your company to make fast, informed decisions as circumstances require is a critically important business undertaking. Your organization's success may very well hinge on it.

Business Rogaining

2011-07-05T09:30:00.125-05:00

Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation lasting as long as 24 hours for champions. Teamwork, endurance, competition and an appreciation for the environment are features of the sport, which involve route planning and navigation between checkpoints using maps and a compass. Checkpoints are scored differently depending on the level of difficulty in reaching them, and teams select strategies to earn points based on the skill level of its members. The team with the most points wins.

The rules of Rogaining are relevant to a firm’s drive for growth with maps, compass, high value checkpoints, low value checkpoints. But according to a recent Booz & Company survey of 1,600 global executives, 81% admit to entertaining too many route plans. Brainstorming ignites a range of internal frenzies that produce waste and financial shortfalls. Human nature is such that those originally responsible for bringing failed initiatives to the company often double-down instead of changing course.

Blueberry can attest to a similar situation in the food industry as chasing too many or the wrong opportunities cripple companies by:

Not focusing enough on the costs of the chase
Clinging or reverting to what's worked in the past in a different environment
Building strategies on the opinions of those with limited scope

As a result, core processes become saturated by trying to do too much, ultimately missing the numbers and more:

Innovation dissipates
The organization's identity becomes blurry
Sales processes fall out of sync with customer purchasing patterns
Collaboration fails to cut across internal functions to capture new customers
Frontline and even middle manager employees do not understand how their efforts contribute to the larger goals of the business
Accuracy is secondary to activity and output

Unfortunately, organizations only reward doing, not avoiding. Refraining is not celebrated because its effects are invisible. But when revenues and other financials are stagnant or slipping, great leaders pull the plug and scale back, not ramp up, on priorities. They refuse to get caught up in head games about which new products to pursue, what new markets or segments to enter, how many more activities to focus on and track.

Practice the arts of abandoning and avoiding, not embracing and chasing. Stop, re-evaluate, re-focus and get your organization back on a narrower path. Those that do are three times more likely to earn above-average revenue growth than others according to the Booz survey.

Rogaining is more than an international sport. It’s a smart way of scoring big points in business.

Avoid The Envelopes

2011-05-17T12:15:00.003-05:00

A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street -- responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."
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An old joke with serious undertones. CEOs must show top-line growth despite a less-than-accommodating market environment. Even when the numbers advance, how much new growth is sustainable over time? Is it possible that CEOs accept belly-filler accounts so the top number buys another year of economic recovery time?

Food industry chief executives need to understand their company's real sources of prosperity. This should never be left to the VP. The CEO alone has the authority to make necessary adjustments throughout the organization to get and keep the top-line number moving in a positive direction.

Let's focus on one common area of concern today. If you, like many in our industry, are concerned with sales results, here are a few steps you can take to kick start the number:

Step #1: Take a backwards glance

Identify and isolate what and where things have been going wrong or need improvement. Independently review the results from target account lists over the past 18 months to determine:

How many targets resulted in face-to-face meetings?
How many meetings resulted in a sampling or presentations?
How many presentations resulted in new business?

What matters is not just the hit rate, but the miss rate. Your company must bear the costs of missed opportunities--or new business profit must absorb them. If your company has a 1-in-10 close ratio, it's time to reach for 2 in 10 and that can be done with steps 2 and 3.

Step #2: Assess the process

Is your company's selling pattern in sync with customer supplier selection and purchasing timetables? Is your sales team late to the party, or maybe even a no-show?
Are sales managers equipped to provide accounts with real-time justifications for customers to do business with your company?
Do your priorities for the sales department include better Sales alignment and hand offs with other functions inside and outside the organization? Better segmentation and account targeting?

Identify the top 3 restraining forces in acquiring new business (look at the organization as a whole before zeroing in on silos) and the actions required to address them. Let data and facts, not opinion, speak in making this assessment.

Step #3: Take Action

Looking ahead with three critically important recommendations that will transform the way your company grows:

Everyone on the team must be adept at identifying, communicating and proving that doing business with your company makes customers Better, Faster, More Cost-Effective than they were before or if they bought from someone else.
Make sure capabilities of your organization, its high level flow of activities and their various inputs and outputs that define how you provide value to customers are appropriately aligned, measured and improved to achieve your organization's financial goals.
Become ruthless in reducing or eliminating low-value activities wherever possible, freeing up valuable time to pursue and support profitable, sustainable new business. Review pre-recession modes of operation, as well as the value and return on discretionary activities such as industry events, corporate meetings and paperwork.

Take an authentic, no-nonsense approach to growth by making it sustainable and making it meaningful to both sides of the transaction table. With courage, focused attention and self-imposed accountability for executing our recommendations, you will be counted among other food industry's leaders as one mastering the process of generating new business.

Sales Time Is Now

2011-03-31T13:34:00.003-05:00

Chief executives in the food industry are looking for more revenue. Out of the five primary services Blueberry provides, conversation usually comes down to, “How can you help us grow sales?”

The good news is that customers are still buying. There's no lack of artisan breads, desserts, marinara sauce, chicken breasts or appetizers on restaurant menus. Maybe they’re not turning as fast as before the recession, but plenty of products in your category are in development, being presented, sold, distributed and served in restaurants.

The bad news is when customers are not buying from your company.

Getting to the root of the problem to kick start new volume, we offer a few observations:

Sludge in the sales pipelines is slowing down the system: There are too many poor targets, hits and misses, and too much activity unrelated to growing the top line number. Speed is everything in sales and many c-leaders are not taking active steps to free up valuable time and resources. The VP of Sales cannot do this to the extent a CEO can. He or she lacks the total-organizational scope, authority and accountability to remove bottlenecks and improve the process. In addition, the cost of activities unrelated to gains is high, and have very little to do with accumulating new sources of income for your company. Target accounts? Over half we've seen landed on the list without a snowball's chance of closing.
The voice of the customer has grown dim or been lost in translation: It’s easy to make assumptions about what customers need from your organization. The information you get is usually watered down and filtered through internal channels. By the time business or opportunities are lost, it’s too late and the real reason for the defection is unknown as attention shifts to the next one. You need to know the truth about why customers are not buying from your company…and it’s rarely because of price.
The wrong sales people are hired for the wrong reasons: A candidate has ‘relationships’ with certain high profile accounts and bingo—he’s hired. A VP of Sales recruits managers from a prior firm to build her “own team”. Smooth talkers, charismatic story tellers, likeable socializers…executives need to look past these behaviors and employ Sales Creators--experts in your products and services and in all aspects of sales from Prep to Interaction to Rapport to Pitch. You need people who will make the case for how doing business with your company adds value to the menu and helps improve customer revenue, grow profit and patron traffic. You need people who can communicate your company’s competitive advantage to avoid dickering about price. You need effective managers and excellent trainers, informed about the market and successful in fulfilling objectives.

Blueberry agrees that it’s time for chief executives to increase their focus on this critical area of the organization. Doing so relates to two of the top job's essential duties: Making sure there's plenty of money in the bank, and securing only the best talent for the company.

Revenue Masters

2011-03-04T09:26:00.003-06:00

The dictionary defines a master as someone who is highly skilled or exceptional at something. Is your company a master at generating revenue?

The restaurant industry is optimistic but cautious about the future. The impact of rising commodity costs, gasoline, global unrest, and stubborn unemployment numbers can rattle consumer confidence and send patrons scurrying back to their own kitchens to hold onto their savings accounts. What’s a supplier to do?

Cost containment has been and should be an ongoing practice, but we believe that attention must now shift in a more focused and systematic way to revenue growth. Flat sales hurt financial performance more than rising costs. If a 5% growth rate is required to break even against rising costs, a shortfall gain of 4% requires 25% more cost reductions to meet the breakeven point.

Now factor in your company’s close ratio on new business. To avoid a direct hit to your bottom line, the profit from accounts that are won must carry the costs of those that are not—as well as other expenses that cannot be passed on to your selling price.

The ratio of customer wins to losses needs to improve. The recession provided an opportunity to uncover gaps in customer needs. The best suppliers use this knowledge to reinvent strategy, operations, innovation and organizational resilience—and are reflected in new revenue-generating behaviors. Here are a few broad-stroke examples:

You have sharpened the account targeting process. This undervalued step frees up selling time to focus on best-chance opportunities and nail new volume quickly.
At least 50% of your customer generation team is objectively rated as experts; in other words, they position your company’s offering with a razor-sharp value message, are unsurpassed in preparation, problem-solving, presentation and customer management skills. You have a systematic plan to transform remaining members into experts over the next 6 months. By developing experts, you dismiss the false assumption that customers form emotional attachments to sales managers that translate into new volume for your company.
Your company’s value proposition has been tailored to today’s customer objectives to reduce food costs, labor costs and eliminate deep menu discounts.
Your company carefully evaluates which industry functions provide the best use of sales time compared to other forms of account interaction. Let the results speak on this one.
Your company outranks competition in highest value revenue-generation activities. This is from the customer perspective, not your company’s internal metrics.
You as the CEO are directly involved in reviewing account targets currently on the table, asking the right questions about how or why they got there, the probability of close, and know the costs of getting business but of doing business. .
The sales sludge has been removed from the pipeline, including some high profile targets that take years and substantial resources to close. Replace them with qualified accounts in new segments that spread risk and expand your company’s knowledge of emerging players.
You have instilled confidence in current and prospective accounts that your company understands their competitive environment as well as your own and conform your value proposition to suit their objectives.

Each broad stroke requires detailed work to inset a revenue master culture in your organization. True, even best efforts may not prevent customer decisions that could negatively impact your business. But without taking proactive steps now, your company can migrate back to an internal focus--a paradox for supplier CEOs who should be looking intently to the outside to reconcile their company to the environment and grow revenue. It’s a brand new day and a whole new game.

The Unintended Consequences of Growth

2010-11-29T16:30:00.006-06:00

Can you think of a more emotionally-loaded business topic than price increases? Food industry CEOs are feeling pressure in the tension between rising costs and customer pricing. Pressure comes from customers resistant to increases, but other pressure comes from inside your organization where market share and sales volume are aggressively defended.

According to a McKinsey study, a 1% price increase contributes an average increase of 11% to your bottom line. Before forwarding this blog to your marketing team, we would like to take the pricing topic in a direction that you, the chief executive, may not have considered.

As you recall from business school, the cost curve is a graph that illustrates the total costs of production as a function of total quantity produced. Costs are high when production is new, but the cost line dips and unit costs decrease as output increases. Economies of scale are derived from purchasing, management and labor skill, finance, marketing, technology and basically, learning by doing.

At a certain point, however, economies of scale level off, and leaders contend with the effects of diseconomies of scale. We like to call this the “elephant effect”. The elephant moves more slowly and heavily as he grows and matures. Powerful and fascinating in the animal kingdom, the elephant effect can erode profitability if not managed carefully in the corporate world.

Examples of diseconomies of scale, or unintended consequences of organizational growth, are:

Slow or distorted information as it passes between multiple layers of management and across functions
Delayed decision making
Congested or reduced response time to problems and opportunities
Resistance to or poor execution of change initiatives

All these and more carry costs that slowly and deliberately creep up on your bottom line.

Blueberry offers three recommendations for dealing with diseconomies of scale to keep profits robust:

Strategize only with your organization’s ability to execute in mind. Structure should not follow strategy; strategy should follow structure.
Thoroughly and objectively quantify the risks, expenses and trade-offs associated with expansion. Its easy to get caught up in the thrill of growth without a clear-eyed understanding of the hidden risks and costs.
Identify and contain the scope of activities across the organization associated with growing market share, product development, or mergers and acquisitions to ensure faster success, highest quality and lowest cost.

A new twist on the price increase topic but still focused on the health of your bottom line, Blueberry believes this is a great time to take a close look at how decisions, communications and activities are impacting profits as you lead your organization into 2011.

Galileo, Chief Executive Officer

2010-09-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

The primary role of the food industry CEO is to reconcile the company with the external environment. One of the uncontested methods of doing this is by maximizing organizational strengths and minimizing weaknesses.

I am puzzled by the number of c-leaders who rest on this line of thinking.

A supplier’s strengths that were relevant as little as 6 months ago may be irrelevant today--or matched by a competitor to level the playing field. A weakness once considered an inconvenience or annoyance in the larger context may now be the deciding factor in supplier selection when that weakness does not exist in a competitor.

Customers we talk to are doing great things and taking big risks to adapt to changing consumer demands and tastes. They realize their strengths from yesterday will not necessarily carry them into the new competitive environment: A major restaurant chain is diversifying its casual dining brand with a fast-casual variation. A new system-wide breakfast program is threatening other giants’ share of the morning day part. C-stores are focused on enticing consumers away from QSRs—and its working. A mass merchandiser is opening hundreds of smaller concept stores. Retail private label continues to grow, influencing new shopping behaviors with quality as good as national brands and at a better price.

These expanded customer models require an evaluation of a supplier’s ability to keep up, to educate themselves on the new business, to help them be competitive and reach their goals, and meet other important performance metrics. Those that fall short add costs and complexity to the accounts they are trying to win, maintain or grow.

“A lot of manufacturers don’t get it,” one chain executive told me. “They miss the mark in areas critical to our business today. The problem isn’t necessarily their price; it’s that the cost of doing business with them is just too high.”

Internal meetings that review supplier performance have a direct impact on the financials supplier CEOs are tasked to deliver. It’s disturbing how often problems, negative experiences or perceptions that lead to volume loss are discovered too late. When all factors are tallied, RFPs or sample requests from competing suppliers can result in split volume, price pressures that drive down margins and extend ROI on investment, missed opportunities…or the volume disappearing completely.

Think about it: Changing or adding a new supplier carries with it considerable cost and risk for the customer. What does it say when the benefits of making a change or foregoing one supplier in favor of another outweigh the costs or risks?

Uncovering and avoiding these scenarios ultimately rest with one individual. Only CEOs possess the total-enterprise perspective and authority to reconcile their company with the realities of customer perceptions and feedback. That requires a willingness to look at hard facts--a job that should not be delegated or filtered through vice presidents or functional managers. It means getting the most unbiased, clear-eyed read from an independent, experienced resource with no stake in the outcome. A two-way direct dialogue between the customer and an experienced third party food industry specialist who knows how to probe and gather input from multiple areas of the customer organization to determine what’s being said, what’s being decided, the “why” of past decisions, and extract perceptions and experiences that affect future business decisions is essential. This information becomes the basis for improvements that drive more customers and cash towards winning suppliers.

Galileo said, “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”

How will you discover what customers believe are your organization’s truths?

The Supplier/Broker Dance

2010-09-03T09:37:00.000-05:00

Cutting the rug with a food industry CEO doing the Customers and Cash Boogie, our rhythm stalled for a few moments when I asked how broker reviews improve his organization’s financials.

Broker reviews do not improve sales. Their costs are buried in supplier financials, offering no insight into the supplier/broker relationship or processes that guide it. Supported by data, they also include storytelling, guesswork and opinion--all in good faith but insufficient for solving problems, making decisions or producing predictive outcomes: “XYZ account went out of business”, “You’re not paying enough attention to our line”, “Competitor X bought the gold level program”. Comparing period-to-period sales or results-to-quota when market conditions, leadership, personnel, competition and strategy keep changing is an exercise so imbedded in sales management culture that its cost-to-benefit is unknown and unchallenged.

Estimate the total number of salaried hours required to source data, assemble, analyze, travel, and conduct broker reviews. You can conservatively estimate a cost of at least $6,500 for each. Multiply times 20 brokers, and your company spends a minimum of $130,000. In net income terms, that equates to tens of thousands of case sales.

Have broker reviews really increased sales revenues for your company? Lifting a section from management handbooks, brokers and suppliers benefit less from this practice and more from consistent, reliable, collaborative processes between your company and theirs.

Resuming the Customers and Cash rhythm with my chief executive client went like this:

Discard this costly, long-standing practice. Just as you would remove barriers to production efficiency, challenge any practice that is a barrier to sales productivity.
Re-route broker review costs to curtailing or preventing firefighting in the sales system.
Define and analyze the functions in your supplier/broker relationship before trying to measure them or drawing conclusions.
Drill into the flow of activities brokers undertake on behalf of your organization: Scheduling, selling, communicating the voice of the customer, supporting customer programs, administrative paperwork, invoicing. Work with your organization to help take out complexity, cost and time wherever possible.
Pay attention to the inputs and outputs of these primary functions because that’s where the real costs and inefficiency reside. Brokers don’t resist or resign lines that pay too little; they resist or resign lines that cost too much to represent.
Effective supplier/broker relationships should be based on reliable, repeatable processes that are consistent across all markets, even when a change in leadership occurs on either side. Business can only be managed by the set of processes that define its activities.
Collaborate with forward-looking sessions that estimate the resources required to deliver the numbers and cascade responsibility for achieving them throughout both the supplier and broker systems.
Whether results are up or down, let your sales leaders review the processes that either contributed or derailed them--but only after you, as CEO, have been involved in establishing and imbedding them.

The supplier/broker relationship should be organization-to-organization, not sales manager-to-account executive: aligned with missions, actionable, consistently measured and reported, tracked as a time series, predictable and compatible with the way brokers do their job. CEO involvement in establishing guidelines is critical because broker performance is directly related to many of your organization's most important metrics: Gross revenue, salesperson productivity, strategic execution, new product introductions, customer acquisition, retention and turnover, and more.

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Unfounded, calcified beliefs could be costly and slowing down your organization, preventing more effective practices from emerging.

Broker reviews is one of them.

From This Day Forward

2010-08-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

As in a marriage, successful coupling has far less to do with the excitement and mechanics that lead to happily-ever-after and more to do with people themselves. Each brings utensils, habits, personal issues, dreams and expectations to the union. By the time both parties say, “I do”, the idea is to ride off into the sunset to begin a long, loving life together--or as the analogy lends itself, integrated as a profitable company equipped for the challenges that lie ahead.

The importance of human due diligence is vastly underestimated in pre and post-acquisition activity. Failure to thoroughly do so is the primary contributor to two-thirds of newly-blended companies losing market share in the first quarter after the deal. Culture clashes, misaligned processes, confused employees and lost productivity are common occurrences that weaken the structure, brand, customer relationships, ability to innovate and morale of employees, offsetting or eliminating anticipated gains. Even the best organizations can get stuck in neutral when executing new company standards, or miscalculate the stamina required to bring about quick, effective and sustainable change.

All reasons not to try going it alone. Very talented and capable executives are caught off-guard by the many human complexities of integration, but a focused contracted expert not hindered by the demands of running the business can be one of the acquisition's greatest assets. As a neutral third party, the expert can change the "we" and "they" to "us" quickly and beyond the rhetoric, help navigate through the pain of hard decisions with clear-eyed rationale, provide objective insight and feedback on where the organization is stuck, and diplomatically work through difficult political and interpersonal issues from a base of industry knowledge that aligns the new company with the needs of the market.

Assuming business integration mechanics are in place or scheduled, Blueberry’s experience suggests a few additional key steps:

Priority #1 is to protect business. Competitors are aware of acquisition turmoil and may be quick to swoop in to leverage their relatively-stable position with your accounts, so make sure customers are contacted (by a neutral party, not someone on the payroll) to gain insight into how the acquisition is perceived and whether any business is at risk.
A clear understanding of the purpose and implication of the acquisition helps define the new organizational culture and its goals, which is an important factor in communicating to employees and customers. Caution: Over-statements and commitments are common during deal-heat; back up what you claim to be, right now.
A false assumption is that the adopted culture is always the one of the acquiring company, but the financial acquirer may not necessarily be the one setting the tone for the new organization. Again, the purpose of the deal points the way here and in other business considerations.
Management from both entities will fight to retain their position. Individual styles, skills gaps, business philosophies, ideas about organizational structure and other business issues should be assessed carefully but quickly and efficiently in order to make decisions that prevent a ground swell of misunderstanding. If not, the pattern will be repeated in the ranks and the business will suffer.
Skills must be separate from personality and tenure when considering the future needs of the company. While an obvious statement, its surprising how often these personal factors blur decisions.
Don’t assume the acquirer’s resources are better or more advantageous than those of the acquired company. Tread carefully when discarding long-standing processes that may be outdated and no longer valuable in the new model—expecting people to discard and replace what they have spent years creating can generate negative undercurrents and opposing camps that can linger for years and disrupt business.
Finally—and very importantly—dig deep and objectively into human issues at the top and throughout the ranks to uncover reaction patterns to change: Areas of friction or conflict, rumors, trust levels, resistance, bottlenecks that slow down workflow, how communication and direction is received and carried out, decision-making methods, perceived authority thresholds and who’s in the dark. These are the messy areas that derail progress in bringing the two entities together and should not be overlooked.

There are no shortcuts to making one company out of two. The question is whether to extend confusion, slow progress and even losses over a longer period of time or assign priority status to resolving the people issues that lead to acquisition success.

So What Happens If...

2010-08-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

Today's tweet from Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business:

“V shape recovery is dead; anemic U growth is baseline; probability of a double dip is now 40%; and a L shaped near depression is possible in US/Eurozone/Japan.”

If 2008 taught the food industry anything, it was that leaders must not wait for conclusive evidence before incorporating critical dimensions of preparation and urgency into their business. It taught us to be ready to discard plans, behaviors and processes that are outliving their purpose, replacing them with a contingency designed for a new economic scenario. And by all means, execute flawlessly -- tolerance for shooting and missing is extremely low.

Blueberry believes that the success with which organizations change to cycle through the current turmoil and uncertainty will distinguish the winners from the losers in 12-18 months from today, tops. Our advice to c-leaders:

• Develop plans that work with the flow of the tide rather than against it. Avoid denial.
• Maintain a close eye on economic tailwinds and headwinds that impact our industry -- specifically, your business. React quicker.
• Find the new white spaces of customer and cost saving opportunities. They are probably not where they once were.
• Keep three contingency plans at your fingertips. Design them now.

2008 caught our industry unprepared. Applying what was learned, leaders do not have to be caught again.

Your 2011 Strategies: Guiding Lights or Candles in the Wind?

2010-07-29T11:13:00.064-05:00

“Strategy” is now considered a catch-all business term: Corporate, Operational, Acquisition, Growth, Brand, Supply Chain…a dozen or more adjectives may be used to describe a few of yours. Their development, planning and execution however often lead to piecemeal, conflicting activities by failing to meet three important criteria:

Relate to the company’s business model
Provide positive, measurable top and bottom line impact
Answer the question, “Where are we heading?”

Your organization has no doubt spent plenty of resources and manpower to develop and implement its 2010 strategic plans. How are you as the leader measuring their effectiveness so far?

Are they improving your organization’s performance?
Are they changing the way decisions are made?
Are they being judged successful, failures, or have some simply disappeared?
Some of the facts and hurdles brought about by traditional planning methods include:
Surprisingly few of those tasked to execute strategies that someone else developed understand them, feel committed or even connected to them.
Their interpretation can be difficult, making successful execution almost impossible.
The senior-most people in the organization usually decide which strategies are important. Decisions are sometimes based on best-guess, or limited information and data.
Strategies intended to deliver the numbers are often just a set of activities with no meaningful financial impact--but continue nonetheless.
Reviewing history to determine where the company came up short is often addressed by doubling efforts, adding or changing manpower, applying capital, designing new techniques or ramping-up various forms of support activity—but the underlying problems remain unidentified or unresolved.
Strategies are often created in silos that burden other areas of the business. For example, expanding production capacity when there is a less-than-optimum sales process to fill it. Or acquiring a company but losing market share by failing to integrate properly. Or a plan that improves customer fill-rates results in quality problems from time pressures on the production team.

It’s no wonder executives agree that the rate of successful strategic execution and impact on the financials is astonishingly low. While many sound effective in theory, they may not meet the criteria listed at the beginning of this article. Their translation and execution could be difficult. They may drive the wrong activity for growing revenue or profit, creating burden and transferring costs to other areas of the organization. Most importantly, they may not uncover the obstacles to progress that remain hidden in your business.

Blueberry Business Group facilitates a thorough, repeatable strategic planning process which leads to successful outcomes. A few features:

Before strategies are set, we undertake two critical steps in identifying areas of the organization to apply focus. Forces that have either been supporting or hindering progress come to light.
A problem or opportunity statement gives each strategy a purpose that does not waiver because it is defendable with data.
They are evaluated and then ranked for their impact on organizational performance. We recommend 3 and no more than 5 at any given time, and they are not calendar-based.
Customer requirements and business goals are linked to every strategy.
Each strategy must be SMART: Significant, Motivating, Attainable, Relevant, Tangible.
Natural balance must be maintained throughout the set of primary and supporting activities that define the flow of the business.
Associated metrics monitor progress and are integrated into the company’s scorecard. Efforts that have no impact can be stopped; efforts that do can be optimized.

Food industry executives are thinking about their organization’s strategic moves and risks that respond to hopeful but troubled market conditions in 2011. Blueberry will work with you to develop a sustainable process that can be used in all future planning sessions to achieve better organizational performance.

Right Under Your Nose

2009-10-22T13:31:00.000-05:00

Did you hear the tale about the poor old lady who, by accident, discovered that the drab painting she had stored in her attic for the last 37 years was indeed a rare Rembrandt that later sold for several million dollars?

“Nice anecdote,” I hear you say. “So what?”

The moral of the story is this: There is money right under your nose – you just have to find it. But how?

Food industry c-leaders are hell bent on increasing revenues. On one hand, they question whether to overhaul what might be an under performing sales team. Others ponder whether increasing sales staff is the answer. Most are devising new strategies or products to grab a larger share amid recessionary declines or shifting behaviors in the food industry. Meanwhile, costs of sales are increasing and prices keep falling. Making the top-line number remains elusive this year and likely, next year.

The real source of new cash — a lot of it — we mean the kind that grows substantial new business — exists inside your company’s very own ‘attics’: back rooms, front rooms, storage rooms, labs, plants, sales offices, trucks and cubicles.

Starbucks reduced costs by $175 million in one quarter. Another firm identified $120 million in savings during a two-day workshop. Sizeable savings can be found in your organization too, right now. And it makes more sense pursuing this angle than betting the farm on the new wunderkind 99c sandwich.

No, this is not Six Sigma, TQM or Lean, which provides an average ROI of 10%. We're talking Business Process Management and Transformation (BPMT) which delivers an impressive ROI of 100-300%.

Blueberry Business Group has over 17 years of international experience in BPMT in Fortune 500 companies and others just like yours.

Let us outline our proven approach to discovering your Rembrandt.

The CEO's Shiny Boots

2009-07-20T14:40:00.000-05:00

Genchi genbutsu. Toyota’s innovative and successful philosophy is sometimes translated into “Getcha boots on”. Rather than hearing about problems through the carefully crafted filters of a meeting or email, the notion is to get information unfiltered and first hand. Genchi genbutsu suggests an attitude that reflects the willingness to get down and dirty with straight facts so that solutions match the problem and market share, customer relationships and satisfaction can grow.

Ask yourself, Do I know for sure what my customers believe and express about my company? Is mine the "supplier of choice" in the category beyond price or program dollars? How does my company measure up against competitors in specific areas of selection, supply and service? And what really was the basis for that lost account or opportunity?

Many customers tell us that you have no idea. And what they say about your company and what you think they say about your company is usually the difference between a race horse and a mule.

Last week, I spoke to a CEO who did not think a clean, unbiased read on his customers' perspectives was necessary. Translation: I am not concerned with what my customers really think. His company's market share was slipping, business was being lost, new accounts were costly, slow to acquire or hard to come by. Translation: I am in denial about customers' changing needs. My company is no longer considered a partner in helping them meet their competitive challenges. His sales team was frustrated with eroding customer relationships and lack of results in delivering their numbers. Translation: Our leader is isolated, out of touch, disconnected, and I am working harder than ever just to hold business. But jobs are in short supply so I better keep my head down and not be too frank with him about our company's failures.

This CEO’s boots were probably under his desk, still in their box, beautifully shiny but unworn. He took out his shiny boots from time to time to show his customers and team but they were clearly without wear and tear reflective of the hard, difficult task of listening to important straight talk. So his customers and employees smiled, commended him on his shiny boots and secretly concluded that this company was not really blazing new trails suitable to what some today call the Death Valley Days.

The most successful captains of our industry are those who make decisions based on accurate, unbiased feedback straight from the mouths of their customers. Yes, it takes courage to listen. But successful leaders insist on being absolutely certain about what past, current and future customers believe and express about their company as a supplier in a contracted economy. Only then can they get on higher ground to make clear-eyed adjustments that remove obstacles, shorten the sales cycle, retain and capture new business.

Higher ground comes only when you getcha boots on.