Starting the Journey to Continuous Top Line Growth

James K. Shillenn, Executive Director, Industrial Modernization Center, Inc.

You may have noticed in recent issues of PA Manufacturer an increasing number of articles and editorials advocating the urgent need for manufacturers to embrace innovation, a renewed spirit of entrepreneurship and a change in focus on strategy and top line growth.

Arguments and evidence are being presented to make the case that without these changes, many manufacturers will not be able to survive the growing competition from other companies and other nations.

For companies who have spent most of their time, resources and creative energy in reducing costs, the thought of redirecting precious company resources to develop and implement a strategy to grow the top line can be troubling if not terrifying.

But what is more upsetting is the thought of your company going out of business, because you failed to change dramatically and used excuses such as, you didn’t think it applied to your business, it appeared too risky or you never had the time to figure out how to change.

Let’s be honest, though. Change is not easy. You have to have a compelling reason to change like: a major customer who tells you they are “shopping around” for another supplier, or you happen to be a visionary leader who has the ability to see compelling indicators in your marketplace that suggest that it’s time to change.

I am in the process of going through change in my organization. I’d like to say that it was because I was a great visionary and saw the need for change, but the truth is, we needed to change because our customers were experiencing declining sales, layoffs and some were closing their doors. We needed to change our services and add new capacity and processes to reach our customers. We had to help them change to grow their top line to avoid being caught in the inevitable downward spiral of competing primarily on cost.

Not surprising, the changes have been painful. That’s human nature. We all needed to get out of our comfort zone and make changes to our organization, changes in our products and services and even changes in our sales process. We’re not done yet, but we are already beginning to see the results of our changes by engaging more of our manufacturing customers with a new capacity to help them develop growth strategies.

What do you need to change? I have experienced and led change in organizations for more than 30 years and have learned the following:

• First and foremost as the company’s leader, you must recognize the need for change and be committed enough to take a significant amount of risk. You will be investing and risking time, creative capacity and money to implement change. Change cannot be driven from the bottom up or even by senior managers.
• The leader must have the skills to communicate their vision and inspire their managers and workers to support and embrace the need for change and the new ideas they will need to implement to move the company forward.
• Implementation is the most painful and difficult part of change. You will need to be empathetic, but you must be tenacious in keeping the change process moving in spite of relentless, and often subtle, resistance – even from people who you thought were fairly flexible and adaptable.
• Find a professional business advisor or business coach who you trust and knows something about implementing change. This can be especially valuable since there will be times when you need an outsider’s view on what to do next, a little encouragement and a good hard push back into the ring.
• You need to be flexible and adaptable. You’re navigating in a place where you and your company have never been before. You are trying new things and, hopefully, learning from them. Some things will work according to plan, and some things will not. Be ready to change course.
• Be ready to make organizational changes. The operations manager or sales manager who successfully led your operations or sales team in producing and selling your current products for many years may not be the right people to lead the development of your new strategy, new customers, new products and new sales processes.
• Be ready to hire new people with new skills. When you are making significant changes in your organization it is quite likely that you don’t have the right people on board who have the attributes, skills or capacity to successfully manage and execute the new processes. You may be able to retrain some people for new jobs, but you need to be realistic in assessing people’s potential to successfully take on new roles.
• Seek out help. You can’t do it alone. You are likely to be already overextended attending to current customers and operations. If you plan to take this on yourself when you get the chance or things slow down, it will never happen. To be successful at implementing change, you will need expertise and added short-term capacity that you don’t have. The Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Centers, for example, are adding this expertise to assist companies in developing their strategy for change and supporting the implementation.

Like many other processes in your company, change is a journey, not a destination. For top line growth you will be actually setting up processes in your organization that will drive continuous change as you constantly seek out new customers, new markets and new products.

Enjoy the ride!