Developing Commercial Teams for Growth

GE Advanced Ceramics – Commercial Integration of Acquisition

Situation

In 2002, GE Quartz purchased Advanced Ceramics Corporation (ACC), a privately held company focused on niche materials for semiconductor, electronics, consumer, and industrial applications.  As a small private company, ACC had little in the way of established commercial processes and a poorly defined product strategy at the time of the acquisition. Greg was selected to be part of the acquisition integration team, with responsibility for optimizing the commercial organization, formalizing a product strategy and processes for developing and executing it, and delivering whatever revenue and cost synergies were possible from the limited market overlap.

Approach

After taking some time to gain a deep understanding of ACC’s markets, customers, products, and commercial team members, Greg began modifying and implementing traditional GE commercial processes such as multi-generational product planning and new product development while identifying and helping to fill gaps in the organization’s capabilities.  Greg led development of an internal opportunity tracking system to better track and close the myriad of opportunities presented by that ACC’s (now GE Advanced Ceramics) portfolio.  Greg also proposed and helped to implement a new commercial organization, consolidating product management and sales roles based on the capabilities of team members, and introducing a new market segment management team based on a successful model developed at GE Plastics.

Results

The integration went smoothly, delivering the new processes and organizational structure ahead of schedule and meeting sales and margin targets in the first two quarters after acquisition.  Additionally, the new market segment management structure and opportunity tracking tool proved adept at helping to expand GE Advanced Ceramics share in existing and new applications, delivering growth from new platforms for years to come.

Telesis Technologies – Introducing New Product Development Processes

Situation

Telesis had lost focus on its new product development process.  The regular reviews to keep projects on track and hold to a longer-term roadmap had ceased, and most new product development prioritization fell to the engineering team. Customers and the commercial organization had little involvement in the process. There was minimal accountability for meeting the schedule or for the ultimate results of new product launches, with poor commercialization practices further hampering progress. Finally, the company was overlooking the opportunities for growth in Europe that a favorable exchange rate provided and not reacting to ideas for new products specific to European customers’ needs.

Approach

Drawing on his experiences with GE, while implementing more capital equipment-specific steps from a semiconductor equipment company and acknowledging successful past practices from Telesis, Greg developed and implemented a global product planning process and new product development system.  This process involved an annual global product planning session involving global resources from all functions, along with a tollgate system for tracking progress on new products that kept projects on scheduled and encouraged adjusting course when necessary.  The new product commercialization process received particular attention, driving a focus on product launch plans earlier in the process and more consistent follow-up to achieve results after launch.  Greg trained the company on the use of the new processes and oversaw the global planning meeting and new product reviews, with ultimate responsibility for delivering the resulting new product sales plan.

Results

The increased organizational involvement in new product planning and execution resulted in a clearer product roadmap, improved on-time-delivery of new products, and a tripling of new product revenues in the first year.  Additionally, Telesis was better able to communicate to key customers and distributors about new product plans, thus helping them prepare their own launch activities and reinforcing the company’s image as an innovator. Finally, by better defining priorities, the engineering team’s morale improved due to a greater ability to focus on new products and to walk away from less value-added activities, resulting in productivity gains.