A great marketing team isn’t just a collection of talented individuals—it’s a well-oiled machine that drives business growth. But how do you structure a marketing team for maximum efficiency? Whether you’re a startup or a large enterprise, the right structure can make all the difference. Let’s break it down.

1. Understanding Your Business Needs
   Before you start hiring or restructuring, consider:
   ● What are your company’s marketing goals?
   ● Do you focus more on brand awareness, lead generation, or customer retention?
   ● What’s your budget and team size?
   A small business might need generalists who can wear multiple hats, while a larger company benefits from specialists in various areas.

2. Choosing the Right Marketing Team Structure
   There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but here are some common structures:
   
   A. Functional Structure
   Best for: Mid-to-large-sized companies – How it works: Teams are divided based on specific functions, such as:
   
   ● Content Team – Writers, designers, and video creators
   ● SEO & Analytics – Experts who optimize content for search and track performance
   ● Paid Media Team – Manages PPC, social ads, and digital campaigns
   ● Social Media Team – Oversees brand engagement across platforms
   ● Product Marketing – Focuses on messaging, positioning, and launches
   
   B. Pod or Squad-Based Structure
   Best for: Agile startups and fast-moving companies – How it works: Small, cross-functional teams (pods) work on specific projects or campaigns. A pod might include:
   
   ● A strategist
   ● A content creator
   ● A designer
   ● A performance marketer
   ● A data analyst This structure fosters collaboration and quick execution.
   
   C. Hybrid Structure Best for: Scaling businesses that need flexibility – How it works: A mix of functional teams and pods, allowing for specialization and agility. This ensures a balance between strategic planning and execution.

3. Defining Roles Clearly
   Regardless of structure, clarity is key. Define each team member’s responsibilities to avoid overlap and inefficiency. Key roles might include:
   
   ● Marketing Director/CMO – Sets strategy and vision
   ● Content Manager – Oversees brand storytelling
   ● SEO Specialist – Ensures content ranks well
   ● Paid Media Manager – Runs advertising campaigns
   ● Social Media Manager – Engages with the audience
   ● Marketing Analyst – Tracks performance and provides insights

4. Encouraging Collaboration Across Teams
   Marketing doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Encourage communication between marketing, sales, and product teams to align goals and maximize impact. Regular check-ins, shared KPIs, and collaboration tools (like Slack, Asana, or Trello) help keep everyone on the same page.

5. Adapting and Scaling Your Team
   Marketing trends change, and so should your team structure. As your company grows:
   
   ● Reevaluate team roles and responsibilities
   ● Invest in training and development
   ● Leverage freelancers or agencies for specialized tasks

Final Thoughts

There’s no perfect marketing team structure—only the one that fits your business needs best. Whether you go functional, pod-based, or hybrid, the key is to stay agile, encourage collaboration, and keep evolving.

Of the world’s 500 largest family businesses, 32 (7,6%) are located in Latin America according to the 2016 Global Family Business Index.

Over 70% of these businesses are publicly listed companies with average 78 years old.

On the other hand, Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LACAR) are home to upwards 57 million small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 100 employees.  These companies account for over half of the region´s net job creation.

Nevertheless, SME´s in LACAR are far less competitive than their counterparts in wealthier countries and have enormous untapped potential.

One has to remember that, among other challenges, the region is in urgent need to create more and better economic opportunities for its workers.

Family businesses have to face the passing of the reins to the next generation

Speaking of challenges, all family owned businesses (FOB) have to face, one day or another, the passing of the reins to the next generation.  This is a delicate moment in the life of any family-run organization.  At that point, SMEs that have planned (and developed) in advance family protocols and succession agreements, will be in a much better position to achieve a generational transition without compromising the future and the continuity of the company itself.

Several models have been developed to describe and analyse the different stages that family business go through during their existence. To make it simple and as an overview, I will refer in this paper to the basic 3-stage model that summarizes the business lifecycle:

• Founder(s) Stage
• Sibling partnership
• Family dynasty

Stage 1: this is the initial step of the FOBs

The company is entirely owned and managed by the founder(s). There is a strong commitment of these individuals to their success of the company and a relatively simple governance structure. The control and ownership rely on the hands of the same person, but the most important issue to be addressed during the life of the founder is succession planning.

Stage 2: management and ownership have been transferred to the children of the founder(s)

Governance issues tend to become relatively more complex than those observed during Stage 1. A new share of issues arise, like: maintaining family harmony, formalizing business processes and procedures, establishing efficient communication channels between family members and ensuring succession planning for  key management positions.

Stage 3: more family members are directly or indirectly involved in the business

Many of these members belong to different generations  and different branches of the family.  Therefore, many diverse ideas on how the company should be run and how the overall strategy should be set appear. By far, this stage involves numerous family governance issues. Some of the most common, are: family member employment, family shareholding rights, dividend policy, family conflict resolution and family vision and mission.

In a typical non-family business, any involved individual can be an employee, a manager, an owner, a director or some combination of these roles.

However, in FOBs environments, matters become more complex as an individual may have multiple roles and responsibilities.  Among other family governance institutions that a FOB might develop, are: family assembly (i.e. “family forum”); family council (“family executive committee”), family office (investment and administrative center); just to name the most relevant and common.

Key aspects of family governance institutions

Mexico has the second largest economy in Latin America.  It is a nation where affluence, poverty, natural splendor urban blight rub shoulders.

Like with many other industries, the pharmaceutical sector faces global and local challenges.  To put it on perspective, Mexico is the eleventh global market for pharma with a net worth of 13.2B USD. The country has extensive Healthcare needs, particularly those related to chronic diseases (cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer, etc.).

Still considered as an “emerging market” by many global companies, Mexico is perceived as having enormous potential and multinational companies hold high expectations for their local subsidiaries.

Therefore, when a SME-FOB like Quimica Farmaceutica Esteroidal (QUIFAEST) requested consultation services, prior context, as described, needed to come together for effectively analysis, development and implementation of their own Family Protocol for this pharmaceutical enterprise.

It has only taken a few weeks, to assemble a comprehensive business diagnosis for this company.  To the owner, soon to be identified as Board President, and one of his siblings -operating General Manager- the insights provided about their company stage, the global and local industry perspectives outlined, the painful -but necessary- actions that need to take place within the organization (like removing family members from key areas/positions, due to poor results) have been both eye openers and rewarding guidelines to establish the foundations for succession planning and formalizing business processes and procedures.

Work lies ahead, both for QUIFAEST and my consulting services.  At present, this company is consolidating presence with branch offices in  3 major US cities, as well as operation partnerships with Indian counterparts.

In the words of the company founder and operating general manager: “We have found a very knowledgeable and practical Business Consultant. But more importantly: now a friend”.

About the author: Armando Camarillo is Founder & Managing Director of Achieve Consulting Mex – LatAm, a business consultant firm focused to entrepreneurs and SME but with 3 decades of professional experience to serve large corporations in specific projects.  Specialties: business start ups, increase sales, consolidate market expansion, install world class management practices, provide mentoring. Spanish & English spoken. Intermediate Portuguese (reading and writing business communications)

View Armando’s short bio

How global uncertainty drives business, commercial and pricing models?

With rising global uncertainties which have emerged over time, fueled by the recession of 2008 came new operating and business models including cloud computing. Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) came in much earlier to that, perhaps due to the previous recession and evolution of technology.

The traditional model of customers having to bear huge upfront cost for implementing large scale transformation programs and subsequent operating costs over time became the not so preferred model. The need for elasticity and opex based models gained further momentum. Conversion of capex based pricing into opex based, where upfront costs are recovered over time on a certain basis such as a per Virtual Machine or per transaction with cost of capital built into could be one theme for large service providers who have the financial ability to do this, withstand, successfully deliver and reap the benefits of being a true transformation partner. Taking this further, a catalog based pricing with options to mix and match offerings is another within this. On top of this simulating across different volumes of transactions or other unit of measurement such as Virtual Machines meant a nightmare for the pricing modelers as well as procurement departments of the customers who need to look into the future and guesstimate the demand to support the service providers in building a model and quote. All this has given rise to something very interesting for the customer. Equally on the other side, customers need to provide some ramp up assurances over time to the service providers with a tight governance model on both sides, in order for the service provider to be able to meet commercial goals while unleashing the transformation.

Not all transformation programs run their full life and meet their stated objectives, many fall by the way side for so many different reasons that one could write a book. In such scenarios, the service provider should in fairness get compensated for upfront costs remaining un-recovered for having taken the risk and tried best possible endeavor to make it a success.

Decision making and implementation has to be quick even though the planning is for the long term. It is somewhat like running a marathon, but at the speed of multiple sprints so as not to lose focus on the long term goals as well as celebrating tangible short term success along the way, thereby retaining continued sponsorship for the overall program.

The other not so related thought that comes to mind is why cloud is not being spoken about extensively in the Finance and Accounting (F&A) BPO space. After all, the so called key F&A processes such as Accounts payable (AP), Accounts receivable (AR), General Ledger (GL) and Fixed Assets (FA) are so noncore to the finance function of the customers in the first place, which is why they go the BPO way towards the goal of reducing the cost of running the finance function as a % of revenue. These are clear candidates for being moved onto cloud based computing environment, typically a public cloud. Similarly processes around procurement and other horizontal offerings can certainly be looked at being moved the cloud way. Some extra ordinary mix and match of technologies, tools and providers are available in the Cloud space, which should be evaluated, selected and implemented along with the now over mature cost arbitrage based process and workflow automation tools, to get miles of first mover advantage for new customers or take existing customers to the next level of transformation.

Data privacy and security are key in cloud no doubt, but there are global best practices and standards around this which service provider are more than eager to implement.

Outcome based pricing is another area which is dreaded by most except commodity services as in the infrastructure maintenance space or low end BPO space where outcomes can be defined with ease and measured without ambiguity. Taking a true partnership approach, all the pitfalls of outcome based pricing needs to be overcome and progress needs to be made vigorously by service providers in this direction far beyond these two areas, with customers ready to share the benefits when outcomes are realized and the times are good without taking it away from the service provider. Continuity of account management & governance on both sides over a long period of time is very crucial here.

Fear of failure must be overcome, in order to succeed. And innovation, with relentless pursuit to implement it and showcase commercial success is a must.

Another aspect that comes to mind is how to deal with service. Today everyone wants to sell something to you and run away. When it comes to service, it is either expensive in the form of Annual maintenance contract (AMC) or spares, or the product goes obsolete much earlier than not so long ago, requiring a mandatory replacement. While in the IT world, this is natural, as technologies evolve, in the non IT space, it is important that products are made like the good old days where the product would function its stated purpose for many years or decades to come and there is reliable service around it. In general, today’s products are not built to that last very long as they used to be decades ago. Most of the spares within it require to be replaced at certain prescribed intervals or risk the warranty lapsing and the value of the product, such as a car, keeps going down very rapidly. While this means big business for the car manufacturers in the form of revenues from after sales spares and dealers on account of servicing and selling these spares, the end customer actually ends up buying a consumable in the form of a car, rather than an asset, as in the past. Similarly in IT, there is a need to build robust technology which will last a very long duration of time. IT when taken in its total cost of ownership is actually very expensive and hence this theme holds lot of importance.

IT should be used to solve world’s major problems such as food security, healthcare and natural disasters in a much more intensive, long term oriented and cost effective way than it is today and there should be lots of opportunities if this happens.

IT spend within emerging economies has to go up manifold and yet be affordable in such highly price sensitive markets and thereby enhance quality of living where most of the world’s population resides.

The last 2 themes will further help in reducing global economic uncertainty which is what this article started off with.

About the author: Rajesh R N

Result oriented and with rounded experience, Core strength is in creative, analytical and advisory roles spanning delivery, consulting and finance to help build high performing teams and also enjoy individual contributor roles.

After graduating from the St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore University, Rajesh became a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Thereafter Rajesh went to U.K and underwent his Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A) from the Aberdeen Business School at The Robert Gordon University through a full time program.

Rajesh has close to 24 years experience since graduation, of which the recent 15 years were in the IT and ITeS industry involving roles in Program Management of large global complex transformation programs, Commercials and Contracts Transitions management, Solution design, Management Consulting. The remaining years are in Business Advisory services, Corporate Financial Management, Accounting, Auditing and Taxation in diverse industries such as oil and gas, property development, consulting firms, floriculture and bio tech. View Rajesh’s short bio

Some of the most powerful people of today’s world are women. They are leading nations and fortune 500 companies and are holding up extremely well in a male dominated world, bringing change and new perspectives to the established ways of doing politics or business and setting new standards. There are numerous examples where women did prove their business acumen and ability to tackle the odds of a global business world – on many occasions, with considerable more sensitivity and foresight as their male counterparts – and with better results, as noted by a study (Catalyst, 2007, Grant Thornton) : In his study, companies with a higher proportion of women on their board had significant higher returns on invested capital, returns on equity, and sales.

Underrepresentation of women in business

And yet – the representation of women in CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies lies still below 5%.

Why – in a modern, allegedly equal and liberal society – is it so hard for women to access these top jobs?

The stereotype answer to this question lies on hand: because they chose the family way over their career. True for some, but looking at the whole picture, one will find, even with the same education and willingness to succeed, most women stay miles behind their male colleagues.

Same work, same pay?

Starting with the salary: women are paid on average 25% less than their male counterparts – and this is not just due to the generously quoted fact that women often work in lesser paid industries, such as education, healthcare etc., as this only equates for a portion of the gap. Looking closer, the pay gap stays true when comparing functions within one industry: same work, same position, less salary.

As a matter of fact, the pay gap winds its way through all levels and sectors, and gets worse the higher a woman climbs in the hierarchy of a company. It is also true for the film and art industry.

A sad state of the affair, considering that its more than half a century ago, when the first women went on strike to fight for equal pay.

A recent study in Germany revealed that although over 80% of the jobs in the book industry are occupied by women, only 4% hold well paid executive positions. This inequality continues with the novelists itself. Although women novelists are clearly ahead of their male colleagues, when it comes to their representation on the top places of bestselling lists (paperback), they are rigorously underrepresented in the classy hardcover section and prestigious literature reviews. Looking at awards, it seems that the best entry ticket to win a book prize is a male name.

Lack of recognition

Which brings us to the next point of the dilemma: Recognition.

Parallel to the lack of recognition in the world of literature, women struggle hard to get the same recognition and respect for their (same) contribution to the success of a company as their male colleagues. This boils mainly down to biases towards women, both conscious and unconscious, equally from men and women.

The number of prejudices against women (and men) in our societies is huge and although many of them would not hold up against reality anymore, the people hold on to them, due to their socialisation.

I am not just talking about blunt prejudices such as: “women are no good at math, cannot take strategic decisions and are unable to park a car without denting it”. I am talking about the small underlying biases that tend to keep women in their place as perceived rightful by society.

The old mind-set

To give an example: a friend of mine, a very successful mother of three and top executive has to go on business trips on a regular basis. While her husband has no problem taking over the children and household when she is away, her mother keeps reminding her, that she ought to be careful with all those business trips, as one day, her husband might be gone. A worry her mother never aired at times when her husband joined the frequent flyer ranks. You might argue, that her mother belongs to a generation, where gender equality was still in its baby shoes, but what about her 10 years younger neighbour, who instantly offers to cook for her poor abandoned family as soon as my friend steps out of the house carrying a suitcase. A very kind, but nevertheless annoying offer, as it promotes inadvertedly the silent understanding, that a fulltime working woman needs no support caring for a family next to her job, while the same task is unacceptable for a man. This perception does not stop at her mother and neighbour, it follows her in form of the frequently asked question: “Oh, you got kids? Who is looking after them, while you are away?”

A question by the way, her male colleagues never will hear.

A question that nurtures her bad conscience towards her family, although her husband is perfectly fine looking after her children.

A question, that clearly indicates her perceived role in society and shuts her in the drawer “mother, not fully dedicated to business, not reliable”.

It’s a mind-set, so tightly woven in our perspectives that we can rarely free ourselves from the consequences: clear, linear career path for men, disrupted, then stagnant career for women. Worsened by the lack of sponsoring endured by women, though undeniably inevitable to progress to the very top. Furthermore, whereas men sponsoring men is regarded as normal, when a woman benefits from the same type of sponsorship it is often linked to a romantic interest beside the business matter.

Old fashioned? Sadly not. It’s still a typical reaction to female sponsorship, coming from both, men and women.

Assertiveness and vision versus adaptability and sustainability

Women tend to be more willing to take a step back if ought to be needed, to adapt to a changing situation and to put the interest of a community ahead of their own. Thinking in sustainability terms, these attributes should be highly sought after to lead the changing global business world into a sustainable and liveable future. Yet, it’s the lack of assertiveness and pushiness that holds them back in second and third row, while men step to the top, elbows out, a visionary goal in mind and focus rather on their own achievement than the greater worth for the company, humanity or environment. Strangely, a man displaying assertiveness is regarded as a being strong; a woman displaying the same assertive attitude is easily cast as being difficult.

But – while assertiveness can be learned, to become visionary is hard to train.
Without visionary pioneers though, the world would be at a standstill. But visionary business tycoons, who set short-term goals above long-term liveability and sustainability, act irresponsible to present and future societies. As we see well at the current state of our environment.

Out of the trap

There is one important question to ask: how can women (and men) get out of this trap?
There are many aspects to consider, many keys to turn. To begin with: changing the mind-set, where women are less able, less worthy, less important and solely responsible for childcare.
Children are the fuel oft the world, they are the future of any society; they are the most important people in any parents life. And still, when it comes to step back from a career path to raise them, men tend to disappear and hide behind the importance of their jobs not being affected, as their jobs are the better paid ones. (Remember point 2 – same work, same pay…)
In Germany, the state set a clear signal in the right direction: Women can take up to 3 years unpaid leave to look after a child and must be taken back into their old position without penalty to her career. A nice try, but what happens? Now women in the dangerous child bearing age, are less likely to be chosen for top jobs and set career paths, as they carry the risk of extended leave. Also, the state finances paternity leave, to enable shared responsibility. Still, so far this offer is rarely taken, mainly for fear to miss out on the next promotion or to weaken ones position within the company.

To change the mind-set, both, men and women have to consciously question their stereotype reactions in business situations and remember themselves again and again, that these days, there are more women than men with a University Degree out there and modern fathers are fully able to equally share household and childcare tasks. Doing so, the burden of disrupted careers no longer lies on women shoulders.

Stay true

While women should be more assertive and fight for their rights and careers, they should stay true to themselves. To copy male behaviour to become successful is pointless. Women and men are different and this is of great benefit to any company. The moment, when one or more women enter the boardroom of a company, the overall behaviour of the board will change, because the dynamic of the board will change too. Perspectives will become diverse; the board will be more inclined to see different angles of the overall picture. That’s the winning approach: to join forces (see Catalyst Study).

Bringing together the strengths of both gender will lead to the best results. Boards and C-Level positions should be equally placed with men and women and therefore, companies should create an environment, where equal pay and equal opportunities are more than phrases on a mission statement. It’s time that men not just hold the door open when entering a restaurant with a woman. It’s the doors in the heads and the doors to the boardrooms, that need opening.

About the author: Janet Clark studied in three countries, collected three degrees and started a promising career in Brussels. Then she tapped into the “woman trap”, got children and her career came to a sudden stop. It took her 5 years to get back on track. Since then she held positions as Vice-President Marketing Europe and Marketing Director before she joined CEO Worldwide as International Marketing Director.

Towards a new form of consulting?

The future of SMEs goes through their ability to develop innovation and international business. This requires from top managers in these companies to be more aggressive and take more risks than ever: new offers, new products, new subsidiaries or acquisitions in foreign countries, new partners…

Taking risks is inherent in top management role, but it can be comfortable at times to get professional advice. Companies may use consulting services. Another solution is to rely on experienced managers, who can provide advice at a minimal cost.

Emerging needs in consulting

Companies traditionally contract with consultants when:

• They need extra brain power (strategic analysis, HR or legal problem, communication or marketing operation or technology expertise)
• They need external professional resource for design and sometimes implementation of a specific solution (global strategy definition, implementation of a new IT system, setting up of a new structure…)
• They need to solve an internal problem
• They want to “nurse” management (counseling or coaching)

3 parameters may influence the choice of consulting:

• Time: speed is more and more crucial in a fast evolving world
• Scope: local (same country), cross-border (export), or global
• Cost (not only the final amount, but also the phasing)

The market for consulting is well organized to answer most of these standard needs, but no so well prepared to offer solutions for the new emerging needs, as a consequence of evolving business necessities (time – international).

I will characterize these new needs by distinguishing what can be considered as the “high end” and the “low end” of the business:

“high end” or traditional

The customer is a large firm, the mission has a company wide scope and requires external resources, working for the headquarters. The time frame is months to years, and costs are in the range of millions of Euros.

The mission requires a strong and well established methodology and either very strong analytical skills and market intelligence, or a deep knowledge of an IT solution. It will mobilize a full consulting team, on-site or off-site.

“light” or emerging

The customer is a small to medium size company, or a subsidiary of a large company, facing an operational issue, possibly involving two different countries. Time is super critical (weeks), and accepted cost is in the tens of thousands of Euros.

Most of the resources are within the company. The customer does not want a nice methodology or theory, but good understanding of his specific problem, quick analysis, pertinent advice in both countries, from someone with strong operational experience, and potentially, a follow-up either through consulting or through recruiting. Each dollar spent over time must bring visible value immediately.

Standard consulting offer

For “high end” missions, large consulting firms have established over the years standards of quality which make them perfect resources for board level problems. Partners chase deals, young professionals do the analytical work, and managers drive the project and present the results.

These firms have produced over the years smaller size consultancies, created by defectors applying either the same methodology or their own version.

For “light” missions, these consultancies have neither the people nor the processes to do the missions, and their costs are prohibitive:

• Analysts are mostly young and bright professionals just out of school, selected for their analytical skills. As illustrated in several “career management studies”, they are not specifically interested in consulting, but in adding a prestigious line on their resume. Project leaders and managers are former analysts who have demonstrated their skills and willingness to climb in the hierarchy. They do not have most often an operational experience. Associates, partners and senior partners are either lifelong consultants, or former senior executives with a good network and a fat address book, recruited for business development. The actual operational experience of such teams is close to nil.
• Processes are heavy: partners negotiate a deal, the mission must be well defined, to protect both sides legally, and it takes time to mobilize the team, and the customer has little choice about the people who will execute the mission.
• Such structures have heavy costs. One day of an associate is already in the range of 10K. And his job is to sell as many junior days as possible. With even only a few junior days, all missions must be in the range of hundreds of k€, far above customer capacity.

“Light” missions are not a business for standard consultancies.

Emerging structures for “light”

The entrepreneurial frenzy at the turn of the century, a new generation of managers has been given the opportunity to grow and mature quickly. They have seized opportunities to create their business, or to develop internationally their business to take advantage of globalization.

The beginning of the 21st century being slightly less inspiring, first with the end of the bubble, then with the crisis, thousands of these professionals are now available.

These people have demonstrated their skills: intelligence, will power, ability to work at board level as well as to get their hands wet, pragmatism and international competence… And they have accumulated through their successes and the vast scope of difficulties they have had to overcome, a strong experience and most important: hindsight.

There is a consequent, worldwide and untapped reservoir of skilled and mature managers, able to provide high value to customers, provided that the offer can meet the need!

These managers cannot join large consultancies, as the cultural gap is too large. Instead, they now try to gather in groups of 5 to 30 to address the “light” consulting needs. These structures can be cost efficient and very reactive, but with two limitations:

• The variety of competences available to customers
• The efficiency of the professionals as consultants

Variety of competences

Each customer has very specific needs (business problem, sector, size, nature of solution, personality…). When such small consulting agencies only have 5 or 10 available profiles, it is very tempting to oversell the experience of a consultant to match customer’s demand (“You have worked 2 years for Shell when you were 25? Good, you’ll be our oil industry specialist…”, or “My consultant has been to China twice, he knows the country well!”)

Efficiency of consultants

Being experienced and knowledgeable is not sufficient. Listening, understanding, analyzing, finding the appropriate experience in one’s background, having enough humility not to impose but to propose, but yet enough confidence to convince… This is not granted to everyone. And most important, it is mandatory to find the good fit with the customer, who is himself a “boss” with a strong character… There must be no question at the end of the mission that the customer is ready to pay for the value that was given to him.

How to create a valid offer for customers?

To overcome both limitations, the main solution is to have a large variety of profiles to propose to customers, while respecting 3 mandatory necessities:

• High quality profiles only, to ensure the quality delivered to the customer
• Light and efficient administrative process, to be time and cost effective
• A highly flexible offer, to provide tailor made solutions for both consultants and customers

A large and reliable pool

Creating a large pool of consultants is not very complex, as all have ties in some communities on Internet (alumni, forums, investors networks…).

What takes time, competence and patience is not to gather resumes, but to select and qualify the profiles, and to feed a database with the appropriate data for future search. It may take years, but it then provides the “raw material” for an adapted answer to today’s “light” consulting demand.

Light and efficient process

Speed and cost effectiveness are key. And the business is in essence global. The administrative process must be light enough to propose a choice of adapted profiles in a matter of days or weeks. This process must adapt to all countries, as customers and consultants can be located or operate anywhere.

Flexible offer

It is not only a matter of adapting to customer needs, but also to minimize costs. Adapting to customer needs means being able to offer 3 days missions or 3 months missions. It also means to support the customer until full satisfaction, from very short mission to eventually permanent recruiting.

Last but not least, it also means being creative in the mission’s format: a final report is not necessarily a Power Point presentation at the customer’s headquarters, with people traveling miles, and paying for hotel rooms. It can be a 4 hours video conference call (or working session).

Conclusion

“Light” consulting can make the best out of modern communication means:

• Match customers and consultants all around the world
• Offer instantaneous answer, and tailor made service
• Provide high returns for a reasonable and progressive investment.

About the author: Olivier Pujol has worked over 23 years in many countries, positions, and companies. He has conducted business in 12 European countries, in Africa, North America, South America, and Asia, for companies like Schlumberger or Honeywell, as well as SMEs and start-ups. He has been in the position of CEO, COO, field manager, strategy and M&A specialist, business developer, and consultant. He worked on offshore platforms, in the jungle, but also in board rooms and electronic labs.

General Management: Objective – Turnaround and Sell

The company had achieved remarkable growth in its first 10 years – on the surface it looked good, with a new large factory just opened and well equipped in the capital-intensive industry that Print is. The then institutional owners asked me in to provide them with a consultancy report based on my previous extensive Print Industry background. They had bought the company two years earlier but the company was under-performing – their overriding question was – “is the company broken or can it be fixed?” A question often asked by Institutional Investors having invested money in a business that was under-performing.

The company sales performance had been impressive, growing quickly and steadily since it’s founding just 10 years earlier. A second new larger plant had been commissioned and the Investors had backed the company with a generous capital expenditure program. However it became clear to me that the company growth had outgrown the management’s ability to turn sales growth into profits. It is often not understood by executives that the challenges of managing a large company are significantly different from managing a small or medium size one.

In the beginning of the next year a decision was made to replace the President and most of the existing management team. I was appointed Chairman and President of the Group shortly afterwards. Working closely with the Investors, we were able to recruit and replace the key management positions from the local (Polish) job market. We hired a few good young managers into the key positions of Sales, Finance and Operations. Following a quick business analysis we gained agreement with the Investors to implement our strategy and make the changes designed to move the business into sustained profit growth, through efficient production, world-class customer service and fully utilising existing assets.

We implemented new ways of leading and managing the business including improved and regular communication with employees, suppliers and customers and a more open approach to benchmarking, company performance and the sharing of financial and operational results. We installed a continuous improvement culture and ensured that employees who performed well were rewarded and recognised.

A new plant maintenance program was implemented ensuring that machines were kept to the high standard recommended by their manufacturer. Regular maintenance programs were carried out in the 24 / 7 production environment. As a result machine breakdowns improved dramatically, the press crews voices were heard and also acted upon. Working closely with Press Operators, I was able to gain an insight as to what actually worked and more importantly – did not work – in terms of systems and procedures. I learnt that often managers have great ideas, but before getting too excited, you should ask the employees what they think before adopting it as your new culture! We stopped prescribing solutions and turned instead to making the crews more responsible for their own area of expertise.

In order to take the company International we had to be able to speak several languages if we were going to be attractive to our target European customers. So we established a language-training centre, with a focus on driving the business from a multi-lingual base. Existing employees were encouraged to learn an extra language, which they embraced enthusiastically. The production people soon became respectful of the new broadly based and well-trained customer service team. A funny thing happened as we moved from being a manufacturing centred to a customer centred organisation – sales increased! Customers not only continued to place their work with us, they told everyone in the industry how good we were!

Finally our sales had grown by 15%, despite disposing of non-core assets including an office stationary business, hand paper making plant, publishing business and the company head office. EBIT had improved by 180% and Profit before Tax had improved from a (9.5m PLN) loss in two years earlier to 11.1m PLN profit.

We had refrained from spending major capital whilst the existing assets were under-utilised. However, now, the performance of the company and relationships with shareholders and our banks, suppliers and employees improved to a point where we could recommend to the supervisory board that the company could take on increased debt and enter a period of expansion.

A program of investment was approved resulting in the installation of a new Web Press. The business continued to grow profitably and further investments were approved. The increased sales enabled further investments in the latest Digital and Finishing equipment and the creation of a new Fulfillment Service business.

The company’s performance soon drew attention from the Global Print industry. Articles appeared in leading Trade Journals in Poland, Germany, USA, Asia and the UK commenting on our progress and emergence as a serious European Print competitor. Our improved financial, commercial and production performance enabled us to open up a substantial gap over companies which two years previously were seen as being at our level, and the company’s two main competitors, both supported by major international strategic corporations, were showing increased respect and co-operation towards the new kid on the block.

This was demonstrated most clearly when the process of selling the business was implemented. Six of the largest global industry players expressed interest in purchasing the company. Anyone involved in selling a business will tell you that as the process unfolds it becomes essential for the long term good of the company for the process to be concluded as quickly as possible, so that the new owners can make the longer-term strategic decisions necessary for the good of any company. The selling Investors become increasingly focused on their exit whilst the incoming Investor can’t wait to push forward their ideas for the business.

And so it was that one year later the business was sold successfully to a strategic investor, who was then able to apply their global expertise and take the business forward.

A final word about our Polish workers – without their extraordinary hard work, skills and loyalty no turnaround could have been achieved. If you are thinking about investing in Poland – stop thinking and just do it! When I left the company, the employees gave me a farewell present, a nice watch. But the best bit was engraved on the back of the watch “thank you for making us stronger” A success story it is then.

About the author: Alex Walker now lives in youthful retirement (his 3rdattempt) in Cyprus. He worked his way up through the ranks from apprentice and after only 34 years, 6 companies, 5 countries and doing just about every job in the industry, became the CEO of RR Donnelley (UK). Donnelley is the world’s largest printing company.His focus has always been on developing key people to take businesses forward. An innovator, he once successfully started a multi million pound International business – despite Corporate refusing to back him! Alex enjoys public speaking and mentoring and driving young executives to do better.