Background
A large family-owned national distributor and retailer of school supplies to educational institutions, with over $200 million in sales and growing at an impressive rate. The company is over 40 years old, started by a determined mother selling educational toys and supplies to schools from her garage, and has since grown into a respected company now being passed to its third generation of leadership.
Situation
The business was moving at a rapid pace, and growth was affecting every part of the company. The IT department consisted of 26 people with an average tenure above 15 years. Management was frustrated that the department wasn't able to complete projects instrumental to moving the company forward, and morale and productivity were at an all-time low.
Solution
We evaluated the current state and repositioned people to play to their strengths, which quickly improved morale and productivity. We discovered the IT manager had created a bottleneck requiring every project to pass through him personally — understanding and modifying that process opened the floodgates to completed work. We removed monetary compensation tied to project completion, focused the team on personal challenges and a stronger team environment, and mentored the IT manager on sustaining the new environment. Completed projects included new distribution center network infrastructure, WMS project management, hardware standardization, a catalog database, and a project tracking system.
Results
Within sixty days, the IT department reached a level of productivity the company had never seen. The company saved 20% annually on IT salaries by dropping the project compensation program. Monthly IT projects dropped from 190 to fewer than 25, and customer service improved significantly.
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