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Industrial help agency Victrex was seeking to maximise its profitability, whereas discovering a technique to supply new items and providers with out disrupting its core enterprise. With the agency’s management busy with the day-to-day working of the corporate, Victrex turned to Oliver Wight for help – and the consultancy finally helped lay the foundations for a change that led to double-digit gross sales progress within the years to come back.
Victrex was established in 1993. Its headquarters and nearly all of its manufacturing operations are within the UK, with international technical and buyer help services serving greater than 40 international locations. On daily basis, hundreds of thousands of individuals use merchandise and purposes which comprise their sustainable options – from smartphones, aeroplanes and vehicles, to grease and gasoline operations and medical gadgets.
Traditionally, the corporate had a really profitable enterprise mannequin, with wonderful customer support and aggressive lead occasions. Nevertheless, Victrex additionally had vital progress expectations – seeking to improve annual gross sales inside the core enterprise, whereas additionally giving it the potential to grab mega-trend alternatives in aerospace, automotive, electronics, vitality and medical gadgets. As is commonly the difficulty with transformation programmes, delivering modifications to allow this was troublesome for Victrex’s management, which was pre-occupied with managing the on a regular basis working of the enterprise, and firefighting instant points fairly than specializing in the medium to long-term enterprise goal.
It was clear that the agency wanted exterior help, to supervise the modifications whereas administration may proceed taking care of the enterprise because it existed. So, in 2018, consulting agency Oliver Wight was launched to Victrex, and commenced engaged on a brand new technique to ship progress – maximising revenues from its core enterprise, whereas transferring up the worth chain to supplying semi-finished or completed merchandise. This transition made Victrex a extra advanced enterprise requiring higher processes to satisfy its strategic ambitions.
Talking on the modifications, Jakob Sigurdsson, CEO of Victrex, recalled, “We knew that we wanted to develop into extra environment friendly in the important thing processes throughout our core enterprise by enhancing our provide chain, decreasing stock, and establishing higher demand planning controls… After I met Oliver Wight we wished to raised align our long-term technique of progress and our current inside operational capabilities. If we have been going to develop our enterprise, then we wanted a few of our core processes to be extra environment friendly.”
18-month plan
First off, Oliver Wight deliberate an 18-month maturity transition, which included addressing enterprise processes, techniques, information organisation, and governance. Below the steering of Oliver Wight Associate Stewart Kelly, the agency’s group recognized that lots of the operational techniques utilized by Victrex weren’t getting used to their optimum capability. For instance, a number of techniques have been in place that weren’t linked seamlessly all through the enterprise, inflicting time misplaced reconciling information and considerably slowing down determination making because the enterprise struggled with a number of ‘units of numbers’.
Through the ensuing change programme, Oliver Wight suggested Victrex on the development of some 50 inside processes throughout numerous areas. Victrex additionally determined to enhance and replace its current reporting system to develop sustainable efficiency measures that wouldn’t require vital effort to ship the required information and data.
Trying again, Martin Hackett, provide chain high quality director at Victrex mentioned, “Oliver Wight made us realise methods we might be extra profitable with techniques that truly talked to one another. Up to now, each division had its personal set of figures that modified each week. We now plan each day, and we will feed this information right into a system that produces one set of figures giving us a a lot better visibility of efficiency. We’re already seeing the time-cost advantages of this which will probably be much more seen as soon as we transfer out of the constraints of working inside the present and unstable provide chain market and into enterprise as ordinary.”
And the provision chain market was particularly unstable 18 months into the undertaking – when Victrex all of the sudden discovered itself coping with unprecedented buying and selling circumstances. The onset of Covid meant that the enterprise was confronted with unstable demand, international logistic challenges and employees isolations that every one put stress on its operations. With the intention to handle fluctuating demand, Victrex determined to evaluate anticipated demand every week fairly than the same old month-to-month cycle. The agency’s authentic buyer relationship administration course of was unable to deal with this frequency and so beneath the recommendation of Oliver Wight, Victrex carried out the brand new Arkieva course of.
Providing end-to-end provide chain planning processes, Arkieva supplies decision-support options to international purchasers which might be information intensive. These options comprise delicate consumer information, in addition to descriptions of planning processes which might be proprietary to Arkieva’s clients – one thing which proved to “a sport changer”, and really enabled Victrex to avail itself of alternatives that might solely have been attainable in the course of the pandemic.
Victrex Chief Monetary Officer Richard Armitage famous, “Covid was a double-edged sword – we had limitations due to our accessible folks useful resource, and it delayed us reaching our IBP aims, however it accelerated lots of our new processes such because the implementation of the weekly cycle for managing demand and provide. This allowed us to plan, organise, and talk in a peaceful method regardless of the turmoil happening on the planet round. This might have been unattainable earlier than, and it has been very reassuring for workers.”
Past the pandemic years
Regardless of the numerous challenges of Covid-19, and a unstable international provide chain, working with Oliver Wight has finally enabled Victrex to proceed delivering excessive customer support ranges and the enterprise now has a strong basis to extend our program of innovation. Within the three years since preliminary implementation began, Victrex’s monetary outcomes have proven a powerful upwards development with sturdy buying and selling efficiency and money era.
Gross sales volumes have been up by 25% in 2021 and stock ranges have been down by 20%, whereas the corporate is continuous to see wholesome demand in its core enterprise, and likewise seeing the sturdy progress potential of mega-programs and vital milestones throughout the corporate. Its long run progress alternatives additionally stay sturdy.
Stewart Kelly, Associate at Oliver Wight commented, “It is a large achievement for Victrex and specifically as a result of the management group took the chance to make use of our Class A program as a broader business-wide enchancment mechanism past the requirement for accreditation. I used to be significantly impressed with the large quantity of labor on communication, coaching and training pushed by each the senior administration and program supply groups.”
Trying forward, Victrex is in a strategically sturdy place to maximise on its progress plan that seeks to additional develop its core enterprise, seize on mega-trends within the trade and proceed funding in innovation. These embrace local weather change and assembly internet zero pledges – which Victrex has set itself a 2030 objective for – which the agency is undaunted by given its expertise altering quickly over the last problem-laden interval.
Having the final phrase, CEO Sigurdsson concluded, “As a worldwide enterprise, Victrex has seen a strong and sustainable restoration following the impression of Covid-19. We’d not have been in a position to try this with out IBP and the processes and administration that Oliver Wight helped us to place in place.”
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