CERAMICX

The challenge

The firm has grown consistently since 2009, and by the time it engaged IfM Engage in 2013, it had averaged growth levels of 12.5% annually over a six-year period. Confident that still more could be achieved with some expert help from IfM Engage’s Strategy Review Process, Ceramicx asked for a short initial piece of work in the form of a Prioritisation Diagnostic study. This proved so successful that it led on to a series of Business Strategy workshops and, most recently, a further review of its business strategy.

The solution

The Prioritisation Diagnostic was led by IfM Engage’s Dr Derek Ford and had as its objectives:

• Identify major strengths and weaknesses in the business
• Establish strategic priorities for the medium-term
• Align and focus senior management direction
• Stimulate a development and improvement programme.

The work identified a number of areas for improvement. Although recent investment in automation and robots had led to improved quality and increased throughput in the factory, it emerged that there was a suboptimal ‘right first time’ culture at the company, and the firm was reliant on fragmented business systems and processes. In addition, Ceramicx needed to review its pricing for its different offerings.

The strategy and innovation workshops enabled the firm to identity potential growth markets and led to it being less dependent on its core product, moving up the value stream to sell higher value complete solutions. The parties agreed to go forward to a series of in-depth Business Strategy workshops to explore the options in more detail, and to produce a clear plan of action that the management team could own and implement.

Initial project

Create a business strategy that will deliver impressive results.

Tailoring IfM tools and approaches

The IfM Engage Business Strategy template helps SMEs analyse their environment and capabilities, and develop a clear strategy to take advantage of opportunities. The process consists of a number of workshops, designed to involve the company’s management team extensively, yet timed to ensure minimal disruption to the business. Led by IfM Engages’s Dr Nicky Athanassopoulou, the strategy workshop for Ceramicx comprised four stages:

• External analysis to review needs of stakeholders and product market opportunities, and to consider possible strategic alternatives. For example, a number of possible product/market groups such as Ceramic Elements and Quartz Cassettes were reviewed for opportunities in market share, revenue and growth terms. Requirements for cash investment were considered as well as performance relative to competitors.
• Internal analysis of company capabilities and competencies. A strengths-and-weaknesses analysis revealed that Ceramicx had key skills in core competencies i.e. in things that made them distinctive and valued by customers, including the quality of their product and their in house tooling expertise. On the other hand, the company’s brand perception was hampered by associations with a commodity product at low prices.
• Strategic choices and implications for the next stage. Alternative scenarios were evaluated against the generic strategy approaches of innovation, service and efficiency to identify how these could be maximised by the different product/service offerings. Ceramics and Quartz were thought to be candidates for efficiency improvements, while Applications Engineering offered scope for increased innovation.
• Action planning, timings, KPIs, roles and responsibilities. In addition to a renewed focus on efficiency and innovation, Ceramicx decided to reduce the number of countries it focused on, strengthening links with selected countries: UK, US, Turkey, China and Germany.