Strategy development for leading industrial door manufacturer
BOOTH INDUSTRIES
Impact
Clarification of different market needs and priorities
Identification of current capabilities and areas for development
Enabled prioritisation of projects to ensure the best ROI
Impact
Clarification of different market needs and priorities
Identification of current capabilities and areas for development
Enabled prioritisation of projects to ensure the best ROI
IfM Engage has been supporting Booth Industries to explore their 3–5-year business strategy through a series of remote workshops. Mike Jenkinson, Managing Director for Booth Industries, tells us about why the IfM Engage approach worked for them.
The challenge
Over the past 150 years, Booth Industries has been very successful as an original equipment manufacturer, and has an enviable position across several markets, including Nucelar, Defence, Infrastructure and Oil and Gas. However, changing customer requirements have meant that our business had to evolve to retain its place as a market leader in those fields.
As a Senior Leadership Team, we wanted to improve our strategic decision making through understanding and gaining clarity around:
- Our organisational capabilities and the markets where we had a strong brand reputation
- The markets and business processes we should step away from
- In what areas we should adapt, innovate, and invest
Alongside this, we needed to gain buy-in and alignment across the senior leadership team and in turn, the business.
The solution
We appointed IfM Engage to run a business strategy development project to better understand our business’s 3-5-year outlook. The process was uncomplicated but extremely effective and we were able to do all of this in a virtual environment – minimizing travel and disruption to day to day management of the business. By using a toolbox of proven techniques we drilled down into our business capabilities and competences, and were able to prioritise and develop a clear list of actions.
Booth Industries door installation at Tottentham Court Road, Crossrail (2019). Photo credit: Booth industries
The approach
When you enlist the help of an organisation that merges cutting-edge research with decades of knowledge, you have confidence in the process and the people, which gives further weight to the outputs.
The overall approach was well-structured and straightforward. Our IfM Engage Industrial Associate, Duncan Hurlstone, guided us through the process, offering his experience from engagement with previous companies. This expertise brought a fresh pair of eyes and new insights and ideas. As and when it was appropriate, Duncan also brought in experienced consultants, to further enrich the process.
One of the challenges we faced with the project was that we wanted the workshops to be run during March-September 2020, when there were strict stay at home rules in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All the workshops were planned and run remotely. The team at IfM Engage were very sympathetic to the demands of the business, designing a process that involved multiple workshop sessions scheduled across a few weeks. It worked very well, and the team could do each session, digest the information, have time to think and then come back.
The workshops helped us answer a considerable number of questions, and the results were assimilated and presented back to us in a simple and clear way. The tools are extremely effective in focusing our team on strategic issues including areas to prioritise and areas of alignment and misalignment.
The impact
Working with IfM Engage has given the business much needed clarity and focus, which has enabled us to forge a strategy that is aligned to our growth and development aspirations.
It helped us clarify the different market needs and priorities and identify current capabilities and areas for development.
It also helped us identify new projects which offered the greatest ROI. Since the workshops, the team has kick-started three exciting new and important projects. For example, IfM helped identify opportunities for our aftermarket service and repairs offering, and since then, we’ve taken on a manager to run this division and we have seen immediate returns on our investment, with the division showing huge future potential.
Overall, in the last 18 months, we’ve seen exponential growth and we recognise how our work with IfM Engage helped to facilitate that. Our partnership with IfM Engage is invaluable, and we have gained so much from their expertise. We will almost certainly use the IfM in future years to re-test some of our strategic assumptions
“By using an organisation that merges cutting-edge research with decades of knowledge, you immediately have confidence in the process and in turn the outputs”
Mike Jenkinson, Managing Director, Booth Industries
“By using an organisation that merges cutting-edge research with decades of knowledge, you immediately have confidence in the process and in turn the outputs”
Mike Jenkinson, Managing Director, Booth Industries
About Booth Industries
Booth Industries is a world-renowned provider of high performance, high integrity protection systems, specialising in certified, engineered and bespoke multi-protection doorsets. Previous projects include Crossrail, AWE Project Mensa, and the No.10 Downing Street Refurbishment Project.