Situation: Divisional management was placed under considerable pressure by a major problematic project, which resulted in legal repercussions with a customer. The handling of the case tied up many management resources.

innomentor’s action plan:
In the divisional management’s dialogue with innomentor, it quickly became clear that the handling of the problematic project directed the majority of management resources towards a backward focus that prevented focus on future focused opportunities.

Management expert from innomentor, Bjarke Stephansen, advised the divisional management to deal with the legal repercussions by means of a special task group, established by Group Management, as soon as possible.

The divisional management succeeded in this strategy and at the same time took the decision to embark on a development process for the management team with the aim of spreading a new “zest” throughout the sales division.

innomentor initiated a sparring and development process that helped each manager and the overall management team reinvent themselves. By means of this management could inspire and guide the organisation at all levels to refocus on creating enthusiasm, collaborating better and improving communication, as well as to create an awareness of which interventions create the greatest value and to spend time on those.

Det lykkedes fuldstændigt at få gruppens bagudrettede problemfokus transformereret til et fremadrettet udviklingsfokus, hvor der blev opdaget og realiseret mange forbedringsmuligheder i forhold til salgsledelse, samarbejde på tværs, ressourceanvendelse og fokus.

After a concentrated development period of approximately 3 months with innomentor, divisional management continued to develop and implement enthusiasm and development throughout the organization.

The division’s global sales in two years almost doubled from DKK 240 million to DKK 475 million, and it was strongly contributing to the entire group moving from consolidation mode to growth mode.

innomentor was later told by the division management that it was their advice and the process they instigated with the management team that had “lanced the boil”.

Situation: A renowned international Danish technology company made contact with innomentor with a problem. The company’s global sales division has scored a low level of employee satisfaction in the annual employee survey. innomentor was asked to identify reasons and possible solutions.

innomentor’s action plan:
innomentor conducted interviews with the senior management team along with a representative sample of middle managers and key employees in the sales organization and the organisations with which it has its primary collaboration.

Data from all the interviews are analysed and processed to uncover problem areas and areas for improvement. A summary report was prepared with key conclusions on areas for improvement and proposals concrete improvement initiatives which was presented and discussed with the senior management team.

innomentor’s analysis highlights out that a major reason for the low employee score is attributable to poorly functioning collaboration between the sales function and the technical function.

The sales representatives in the various geographical locations were highly dependent on the technical function’s ability to quickly perform specific calculations and technical specifications that could be supplied to the customer in order to progress key sales projects further along the sales pipeline.

It transpired that the local sales force’s enquiries to the technical function were responded to by means of a non-transparent process in which sales people did not know when they could get the project specifications back to the customer.

This encouraged the sales team to put undue pressure on the technical function by threatening that important sales projects would be lost if they did not get their specifications as soon as possible.

The result was an immature organization, where the salesmen who had the best contacts in the technical function, or those who shouted the loudest, got their specifications first and where the relationship between the sales function and the technical function became increasingly inflamed.

innomentor identified 5 areas for improvement to senior management, the most crucial of which was to improve the interaction and collaboration between sales and technical departments.

Senior management was advised to initiate a development and collaboration project in which key players from both sales and technical functions were given joint responsibility for preparing work plans and process plans, supported by IT, to ensure transparent and efficient work processes.

Participation of key players from both functions was recommended in order to secure buy-in from both parties in regular work-flow going forward.

Situation: The company contacted innomentor because the owner’s ambitious growth plans had not been met and they wanted to consider what future organisational structure would best support the company.

innomentors action plan:
Through interviews with key executives and company specialists, it quickly emerged that currently the business was structured as a large matrix organisation, and that this neither supported optimum business sales development nor efficiently utilised resources for product development, oversight, marketing and sales.

Each individual product area, who had tough sales targets to achieve, was required to work through the matrix organization with centralised functions in finance, development, marketing etc. It was found that this was not optimal for developing the business that was associated with each area.

The centralised staff were strong, but not oriented to the needs of the product areas in terms of those areas’ success criteria – they provided the same level of service to all product areas, regardless of their needs and priorities. The individual product areas were led by managers with heavyweight technical backgrounds. These leaders were also responsible for the lead on sales activity.

innomentor drew attention to fact that the common matrix structure had the consequence that differences in the performance of the business from area to area was not visible.

It was not possible for the senior management to see who performed and who did not. This had the consequence resources could not be allocated where they would be most effectively utilised.

This also meant that the areas that generated the most business came to contribute the most to the cost of the centralised services, which had a demotivating effect, since those areas that performed well were seen as subsidising those areas which did not perform well.

innomentor recommended that the company restructured so that each product area became an independent business unit with its own financial responsibility.

It was proposed that the centralised functions to be discontinued and that each business unit was to be given the freedom and responsibility to assess their own needs and to determine what resources would be allocated to, for example, product development, sales, marketing and finance.

Alongside this restructuring, innomentor recommended that the individual divisions were organised in such a way that commercial managers would lead the company and the technical managers would become solution providers in relation to product development and production.

This meant that product development would primarily focus on customer needs and place less focus on product ideas that originated only from the technical organization.

In short, this meant that the company would shift its mindset and self-image from one informed by technically based product development to one informed by commercially based product development.

The company’s owners decided to implement the proposed changes and at the same time engaged innomentor to evaluate the company’s managers in order to identify those who would could head up the new divisions.

Within 1-2 years results became apparent; the new business units experienced significantly increased and growing sales, and the company achieved substantial operational savings.

The owner’s significant growth ambitions have today been met, and the company has increased its earnings compared to those it achieved before the restructuring.