The Client

A 50-year-old, family-owned motion control systems integrator with $50MIL annual sales.

Background

The client began as a distributor of hydraulic products. Over time, the company responded to customer demand by expanding its products and services into pneumatics and motion control systems. Expanding in these areas meant adding more technical staff which, in turn, opened up new areas of potential growth.

Throughout its 50-year history, the company had grown organically. In response to customer needs, they had gone from selling parts to actually designing, engineering and servicing machines. As a result, many new capabilities and profit areas had opened up for the company in the natural course of their development, but they had not put together a plan for taking advantage of newfound potential in those areas.

The Project

Bessemer was commissioned to assess the company’s internal capabilities and analyze which markets made sense for them based on those skills. Once those target markets were identified and affirmed, Bessemer developed the strategy to enter those markets.

The market analysis and capabilities assessment suggested three paths for the business:

• Engineered Consulting Services. A formally structured suite of consulting services to augment the in-house engineering teams of their clients in the design of new products.
• OEM Applications. The expansion of product and application capabilities to serve new and existing markets.
• Regional MRO Services. Maintenance, repair, installation and overhaul of hydraulic systems to customers in Southeastern Wisconsin.

While the company had the skill-set needed to expand services in each of those three areas, they were not set up to fully implement the new strategy. The next step for Bessemer was to assist in an organizational redesign. Bessemer facilitated the effort, proposed organizational structure and refined them as they were vetted from within the company. Once the proper infrastructure was put in place, Bessemer took the lead in communicating the new alignment and strategy company-wide. All of this was completed within a four month period.

Key Points: From Idea to Action

Bessemer demonstrated expanded potential for the business by helping them translate existing services and skill-sets into logical, marketable commodities. They are in the process of executing on the proposed strategies. Orders are being secured for Engineered Consulting Services, revenue from MRO Services is on the upswing and they recently completed a new after-market service center to support user sales. Bessemer is currently working with them on the design and engineering of a user interface for a new motion control device.