Apex Manufacturing Company

Situation

Apex was a moderately successful manufacturing company with a forty-year history of supplying products for the carpet industry. While current indicators were positive, and Apex had enjoyed modest gains, changes in the industry and in the global markets suggested the need for major innovation. Although the company had survived vertical integration and the change from many small carpet producers to three major manufacturers and a very few niche players, competition from Asia brought a new threat.

Facing the new challenges, the Apex team decided to develop a major innovation effort that would ensure their success during the coming decade. To support this new focus on innovation, they recognized that they would also need to develop a major change in their culture.

At first, the logic seemed to be to find an expert consulting firm that could tailor a plan of strategic innovation for Apex. After recognizing that they had the best expertise in the industry within their leadership team, and no outsider could quickly understand their specific needs, the executives decided that what they really needed was a facilitator who could help them collaborate and enable them to achieve synergy.

Activity

An hour’s drive from the corporate office, a quiet lodge provided the perfect setting for escaping the day-to-day distractions and allowing the team of eight to define their objectives and outline the details of their action plan. Because Zelma had worked with the team previously, and a high level of trust existed among the team members, they were able to quickly achieve a productive pace.

After long and intensive sessions, refreshed by some comradery and good food, the team had the blueprint for creating a new direction for Apex.

Results

No longer satisfied with offering products similar to their competitors, Apex became the market leader with products that were conceived, manufactured, and sold by energetic individuals who were highly trained and committed to being the producer with the highest value and quality with a low cost structure that mystified the competition. In addition, their attentiveness to high standards of performance and communication resulted in an “order to delivery” time frame that could not be matched by current competitors or threatened by foreign suppliers.

A year after their initiative began, the team laughingly referred to their “days in the woods” and reveled in the positive changes that had been initiated during that first session.