At the time we first made contact with our client, they were involved in repair, overhaul, field service and spare parts for heavy earthmoving equipment.
Over the years a strong reputation for delivering high-quality services and parts had been developed within a diverse portfolio of sectors with another division – spare parts – on the horizon.
The reason Gibsons were initially engaged circled around a common problem: The National General Manager felt too involved in the daily operational business and he felt he had no time to work on high priority strategic concepts for the company.
He was also interested having an experienced person to act as a sounding board and challenge his ideas in helping the business prepare for the future.
In time, an aggressive growth strategy was developed that demanded organisational changes and adjustments to support it. Gibsons was instrumental in assisting with this. Some significant effort went into implementing a management review process, mentoring and coaching of senior executives, embedding HR structures and cultural change, process improvement and other initiatives.
During the strategy development it was also discovered that a large international customer, representing roughly a third of the total revenue, presented some risk. Once the growth strategy was in place dependency on this single client was reduced to less than 5% of total sales. Years later the company lost this account but due good planning it was able to compensate for the loss within the same year.
Over this time a remote branch was transformed from a money-burning division to a small, but now profitable business.
One of the senior executives of the company expressed that they had learned and grown more working with Gibsons than at any point in their 20+ year career, which included working for and with well-respected industry figures with substantial experience.
Gibsons was valued for their extensive experience with business improvement which brings confidence to exercise insight and table ideas and techniques, constantly stimulating and challenging management team thinking.
This company continues to use Gibsons as an indispensable business adviser.
