The Challenge:
PJ is the Managing Director and principal owner of a family run freight forwarding business. The firm is made up of five directors and more than 100 staff.
When PJ first approached me, turnover exceeded €20m, with healthy revenue growth year on year, but net profit was less than €200k.
Each of the five directors managed their own areas of the business, like they were seperate entities. Each one could clearly identify problems and challenges – and the solutions others needed to implement.
The Commercial Director felt restricted because the Operations Director was not supporting new services. The Operations Director considered that the Commercial Director was introducing the wrong type of customers and the wrong type of business. The rest of the team felt that the Projects Director was implementing way too many changes at any time. Most fellow Directors felt that the Finance Director was too restrictive with Credit Terms. The Finance Director had ideas of his own, which included that the Commercial Director was too generous on credit terms, the Operations Director was too free with credit notes and the Projects Director spent too much for too little return. The Project Director felt that his fellow Directors were massively resistant to change and too slow to embrace automation.
The Managing Director just wanted everybody to pull together and for all of them to make more money.