Schmalz Australia – Strategic Thinking – How to double the business
Schmalz Australia Pty Ltd is the new name for what was formerly Millsom Hoist Pty Ltd, a 40-year-old family manufacturing business in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The name change followed the acquisition of Millsom Hoists by German company, J. Schmalz GmbH, who are the market leader in Vacuum Automation and Ergonomic Handling solutions.
Following the acquisition, Schmalz Australia undertook an Entrepreneur’s Program Business Review as the starting point to develop a strategy for doubling the size of the business. The company invited Roaring Success to help think about and create a strategy to support growth.
Our role in helping them how to work out how to go about doubling.
- To work with the leadership team to help them to create a business strategy which would guide them over the next 3-5 years.
- To run telephone based customer research to find out what their customers really thought of Schmalz.
- To help the business understand what change was needed at the “People Strategy” level, to the management team gain understanding and buy-in of the Company Values and then what was needed of them to drive the required behavioural changes.
Outcome
- Schmalz has a well-documented strategic plan which allows their management to be clear about what is required for success.
- Company Values have been explicitly stated, agreed and implemented.
- The company, like many, was hit by COVID, but because the planning process gave them a clear focus for what was needed, they were able to flex, adapt and move forward.
“Working with Steve Wood and others at Roaring Success helped us enormously with a structure for our strategy development journey.
Steve provided us with a series of templates and a process to help us develop a shared set of Values, along with a Strategy and Action Plans to support our growth objectives of the coming 4-5 years.
We also learned what was important to our customers and developed a series of KPI’s to monitor progress towards our goals.
In addition to the tools and templates, Steve and his team helped us keep focused and maintain momentum on this important activity.”
Peter Hutchings, Managing Director, Schmlaz Australia Pty Ltd
