Let's start first with the organizational design issues. We made recommendations in three different ways. One toward changing their organization's design in the direction of a target culture, one toward changing their organization's design toward revenue generation, and then one toward changing their organization's design toward cost saving. So first toward a target culture. Some things that were notably absent from the many hierarchies that you'll have seen in this organization's design were any structures or institutions set in place for continuous learning. So in this case we recommended that Logistics and Transportation Corp create an in house university. That in house university would be responsible for making sure that everyone in the organization from base operators all the way through managers and above, would have access to continuous learning opportunities, to professional development opportunities, and to really develop their skills, and get a sense of investment from their organization into themselves. Because it's that type of caring from an organization to its people that will then work in the direction of creating a culture of caring from a people to it's organization. So that's an example of one recommendation we made toward their ideal culture. Next, we made recommendations in the direction of revenue generation. So because this organization's design was grown very organically, some parts just didn't really make sense. Operationally it was important that different geographic regions were separate, because operations were geographically different and regulations varied by geography. But for some items like business development, geographic separation didn't really make the most sense. They were trying to go after different lines of business. And what we recommended was that they went after these different lines of business not by geographies, but by verticals. Especially because many of their contracts were government level or enterprise level with national enterprises. So we recommend that instead of having a Biz Dev general manager or regional vice president for a certain region, they instead do it by certain types of accounts. Perhaps one type of account for school buses and another type of account for government logistics and trade. And that would help this organization benefit from involving experts that are aligned with the type of accounts they're trying to bring in, not just experts that are catch all generalists overseeing a region. So that's one type of change we recommended toward revenue generation. A third example of a change we recommended in the direction of cost saving was on building synergies. Synergizing is important for an organization because it allows you to to use existing resources to solve more problems or to use fewer resources to solve the same amount of problems. In this case, we saw that there were a lot of regions. And there were a lot of regional subdivisions within this organization. And many of those subdivisions weren't really necessary. Separating, for example, states, or clusters of states, or clusters of nations that had similar or even the same regulations to follow wasn't helpful because the type of human resources, accounting, and marketing paradigms that were at play between one and another were constant. So instead we recommended that they merge together several of these different regions that they were separated into so as to benefit from synergies. So our client selected a candidate that had a deep background in making private equity exits. But they also wanted someone in the end who had industry experience. The idea was they want someone who can not only successfully manage the exiting process as many sophisticated bankers or consultants would be able to do, but someone who could also lead the finance organization toward getting to that point. So the ideal candidate here was someone with an industry background in a comparable industry. And someone who had previously worked on and led private equity exits before. Once we made our final recommendations, there was some resistance. Change is difficult in organizations and especially on this one that for 30 plus years had run as a mom and pop shop and with a lot of success. So there was this question from some of their senior leaders of do we really need this strategic reinvention? Which is how it seemed at some point. To build buy in and to make sure those recommendations we delivered were received openly and enacted as leadership saw fit, we found that strategy work and working on the alignment of the team on a common strategy was critical. So before we could even get it to the point where the consultants, you guys working on this case are now, of considering how an organization should be designed, or considering the next steps of what a CFO will be doing. The backdrop of strategy, making sure that there is a common shared strategy across the senior leadership of this organization was essential. And so we found that our recommendations were well received once we had strategy set in place and agreed upon across the team we were serving. It's a happy story. So we engaged with this company through a variety of projects and some of them we weren't able to mention. But we worked with them on leadership development too, and culture transformation work, and executive coaching all over a 12 month period. By the end of the 12 month period they were approached by a private equity firm for acquisition. And the acquisition was at a $100 million higher evaluation then when we first engaged because they had a failed private equity acquisition all the way at the start. And so seeing that over one year an enterprise can have a $100 million increase on it's evaluation just because of, and of course there's a lot of other great work being done in the enterprise. I dont want to discredit them by any means. But essentially, because of their work and critical, and honest, and open conversation of building a strong team that's aligned toward one strategy. And that's cognizant of how the selection decisions, the culture decisions, the decisions that affect talent and organization within their operation are critical of the success of the overall enterprise. It was incredible to see after a 12 month period the organization increased in evaluation as assessed by outside private equity firms that were looking to buy them by a $100 million. This is a great testament to how working in teams, working thoughtfully and honestly in teams, working critically on problems of talent and organization within an enterprise, how these are central items. How these are critical items that are important to the fundamentals of operating a successful business.
