CRT Client: Precision Measurement Engineering, Inc. (PME)
Where to Find Them: www.pme.com
What They Do: PME designs and assembles a variety of water quality monitoring sensors for research institutions, universities and government agencies around the world to be used in environmental natural waters such as rivers, estuaries and lakes.
Objectives: PME came to Chairmen’s RoundTable looking for help managing the business more efficiently. Management was also looking to enhance sales and obtain more customers.
Challenges: PME and its sister organization Aquasend (www.aquasend.com) had always been challenged by an inability to evaluate the business on a detailed level. There wasn’t adequate understanding how to strategically explore objectives and goals, and (once determined) how to efficiently execute the findings.
CRT Recommendations: CRT provided two mentors to meet with management twice each month for one-on-one discussions, which provided deadlines to focus on and kept all the key players on track. This effort culminated in a presentation before the full board of 45 current and retired CEOs in a wide range of industries and corporate disciplines.
These suggestions were made to Kristin and her team:
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- Clarify the marketing message and marketing strategy, with more targeted use of particular tools
- Examine internal relationships to better utilize existing resources
- Rebuild operations, systems, and financial structure to sustain planned growth
Results: While PME management was initially focused on growing their sales and marketing efforts, discussions with CRT mentors helped them uncover larger issues related to the corporate infrastructure that needed to be dealt with first. CRT mentors helped to identify these various components that needed attention, including the need to establish a vision, as well as forecasting and establishing goals.
Over time, management came to recognize that parsing their data more granularly would help them understand and predict demand trends, forecasts and future needs.
Since working with Chairmen’s RoundTable to find ways to improve their efficiencies, PME has continued to hit multiple milestones. For the last several years they’ve been enjoying a growth rate of 20 percent, increasing their profit rate several hundred percent in the same time period.
CEO Kristin Elliott says: “The CRT mentorship kept us on target, opening our eyes immensely and strongly encouraging the entire management team to think on a deeper level. This mentorship was our first stepping stone towards superb growth, better forecasting, enhanced management, defined culture and various implementations of new processes and operations.”