Pateo Management Consulting

Growing Sales by 700% in two weeks

Summary:

The following outlines how I found a solution to a key technical problem and hence created a major business opportunity. It emphasises several key aspects of the way I get results from teams and individuals by:

Scene Setting:

I was the recently - few months - appointed VP of Technology at a small, lean business developing image processing systems. I had limited knowledge of image processing and a technical (mechanical, sw, embedded sw, electronic) team that had previously been led by a forceful founder and most recently by a manager who had emulated the founders non-collaborative style.
I was 'presented' with the architecture of a new system urgently needed for a new market by the company's software architect, newly returned from many months at customers in Taiwan, where he had been gathering requirement information for the new product. I was requested - by the CEO - to urgently build a partial prototype of this new system for the architect to take back to Taiwan in a few weeks. This was accomplished, and the architect returned to Taiwan with the prototype.
A key background aspect of the situation was that prior technical leadership did not consult with technical people - they tended instead to direct - and as a result the technical team I inherited was fragmented by disagreements over the direction and technical competence of certain ongoing product developments. This aspect of the situation was to provide both problems and opportunities, in particular because the system's internal partitions could, I found, be moved across the technical disciplines, so that a problem in one domain could be solved in another - if the domain owners could be persuaded to reveal and discuss issues apparently confined to their domains.

The Problem:

I reviewed the new architecture and quickly developed personal doubts about it.
On the architect's departure I called all the key technical people together and we reviewed the specifications and architecture of the new product. It became rapidly apparent that my doubts were justified - the architect had not taken into account key mechanical limitations in his proposed design nor the electronic and software resource demands that were implicit in it.
So we had a major market opportunity, customers anticipating solutions, a short time schedule - and no system architecture. I communicated this situation to others in executive management.

Problem Resolution:

I led two weeks of intensive discussion, involving all the key technical people, during which a new architectural proposal was developed. My basic approach during these discussions was to define the 'box' (schedule, people resources, existing hardware and software) within which we could work and then to exploit 'necessity being the mother of invention' as a challenger and motivator, to release and focus the energy of the team.
  1. I defined the product development timeframe - this was easy because the probable lead customer had a fixed date determined by the start-up of a new production facility.
  2. I estimated the technical resources available for the development. This was done by subtracting already committed work, plus a contingency, from available resources.
  3. I made sure that all the key people shared and understood what they had been independently doing in recent and current hardware and software developments.
  4. It became apparent that a key element of a possible solution could be taken from an already underway but independent product development. This was important because key software was going to become available from this project during the available development time.
    However - we realised that:
  5. This software relied on a key aspect of its host-product's mechanical architecture that was both excessively expensive and physically incompatible with the new products requirements.
  6. I devised and sold two mechanical/optical proposals that obviated this problem. Both had some technical risk and required some development.
  7. This left a final solution-blocking problem that originated from the physical nature of a high precision sensor used by the system.
  8. A team member revealed that he had historically proposed an alternate conceptual solution for this sensor but that he had been discouraged from pursuing it by previous management because of perceived risk. Further team discussion suggested that his solution would be workable and would meet requirements, once some verification and development work had been completed.
  9. At this point I decided that we had a basic architectural solution that would, after risk abatement and detailed development, be suitable for a lead customer targeted by the (absent) software architect, and also be saleable in various configurations to a market that had the potential to increase sales by a factor of ten.

Communication with Executive Management:

I communicated (verbally and via memo) to the CEO:
(i) a plan for developing the proposed architecture and(ii) described the associated risks.
I also indicated that there would be limited R&D resource available for some months ahead, as the development proceeded, and that this would consequently constrain the businesses ability to deliver semi-custom systems, the main product line. Additionally I indicated that we would have to delay the delivery of a system that represented 10% of (then) current sales to a high profile (but not key) customer.
I got no response from the CEO. To prompt a response, and after a delay, I advised that I was going ahead. There was still no response. I then proceeded with the development in order to avoid further delays to an already tight schedule.

Results:

After some significant initial problems the system was extremely successful - annual sales grew from $3m to $25m over two years; a large proportion of the company's total sales were from the new product - the company was selling these systems in batches of 25-50 units when previously its sales were typically of 2-5 units. (System prices ranged from $50K to $250K.)

Types of Problem I can resolve:

See also: Challenge Scenarios

Contact:

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