Ways of Working

Developing new compentecies and capabilities inevitably requires learning, as no improved organizatıon is possıble without improved people.

Companies cannot wait for external (multi) year generic MBA, strategy development, project management or leadership courses in the hope that these will improve business performance once participants have completed their courses.

In addition, science-based companies have developed a unique knowledge base, processes, culture, and business dynamics. Any new desired capabilities are best developed within this context so they are aligned and fit for use.

Example A : Transforming a base chemical business

Situation: A traditional base chemical company implemented a strategy to develop the high value market for high temperature engineering plastics. The necessary resources in R&D, Product Development, Business Development and Marketing were all in place, though largely inexperienced. As this was a new business model to the company, and ıts new hiress, rigorous attention was given to ensure the value proposition was confirmed by the market,and introduce specific internal initiatives to ensure good and timely communication between R&D, Product Development, Marketing and Business Management. As a result the company was able to become a permanent leader in the market within ten years. 

Example B: Obtaining strategic clarity and alignment

Situation: A top three specialty chemicals company bought a major catalyst business. However, integration with the owner's business strategy and processes was neglected for some years. In addition, over eighty percent of the top hundred leaders had changed jobs over two years without internal communication, which made it difficult to understand who to contact and consult for strategic decisions and daily operational challenges. The company requested the organization of a three-day Strategy Summit, along with a roadmap and a long-term implementation plan, all developed in collaboration with the Summit participants, to address these issues.

Example C: Leadershıp Development pilot to enable future growth

Situation: Executives of an O&G services firm, supplyıng specıalty chemicals, realized that to maintain future growth and retain critical talent, a customized leadership development program was needed. A pilot leadership program for thirty candidates was developed that firmly tied the leadership challenges to the business strategy and business objectives by focusing on an action-based and experiential approach to maximize the effectiveness of the Leadership Development Pilot.

Example D: The importance of getting it right from the start-(up)

Situation: A specialty chemicals company with a strong patent base and long term funding in the development of new encapsulation technologies had been developing their technology and sampling products for customer feasibility trials. However, as the company transitioned to the early growth phase it became apparent that the scale-up of manufacturing raised many unanticipated risks suw to the earlier selected process, impact on product specifications and range and whether these correlate with product performance in the customer’s application.

Example E: Developing branding and marketing

Situation: A bio-informatics company that developed an algorithm to scout for meaningful human genetic and metabolism related causal relations in particular disease areas (autism) needed a growth strategy-requıring that a customer segmentation - value proposition needed to be defined first and subsequently translated into a marketing (inc. branding) and sales strategy to support the growth expectations.

Example F: Improving knowledge sharing to create customer value

Situation: The R&D Application Development department of a O&G servıces firm realized that the speed and quality of on-site (rig) chemical solutions they can bring to their international blue-water clients are critical for client retention and growth. A positive business case was made for a custom-made knowledge-sharing platform, identifying the critical information and data field staff can access to assist rıg and service operators.

Example G: Getting New Product Development right

Situation: A leading company in water treatment chemicals and polymer additives pursued and continually invested in eighteen major new product development projects for approx.  $60M/y. Few people had the experience to oversee technological, marketing, customer, and scale-up issues commonly associated with new product development efforts. Leadership realized that it did not have a line of sight on the readiness for commercialization of these projects and identified a lack of project leadership and business development talent to advance the projects that were closer to commercialization.

Example H: Prepare for step-out growth

Situation: A global custom chemical manufacturing department was gearing up for a 2-3X growth in its markets through a more refined and aggressive strategy. It was realized that in order to meet those goals, a number of initiatives needed to be implemented simultaneously:   1. Improve customer satisfaction; 2. Increase the number of opportunities in the pipeline; 3. Improve the internal processes from inquiry-toquote and contract-to-delivery. Leadership requested the design of a solution and implementation plan to achieve those goals.