Case Study - Strategic Change

Rapid Growth Technology Company

What was the burning issue? – Needed a way to unite the investors, inventor and business principals of the business in making make vs. buy decisions.

Where were they stuck? – The inventor was emotionally attached to his technology and unable to objectively review any outside products. Meanwhile, his technology was never quite ready for release.

What was at stake? –The market window was extremely small for the specific technology, but the revenue potential would be a make or break for the company.

What did we do? – TMG worked with the investor, inventor and principals to build a framework for making decisions that supported their mutual strategic objectives. Each of the three perspectives was reflected in the framework.

What behavior was changed?

• The inventor felt enough ownership in the framework to be able to analyze his own and other technologies using the same standard. He incorporated some ready made parts that he had previously believed he had to design himself.
• The investors eventually became less involved in the day to day decision making because they had confidence that a standard evaluation process was being used to invest their money.
• The business principals were able to make faster make or buy decisions with the support of a framework everyone understood and believed in.
• More employees offered us options to consider, with the confidence that their ideas would be given an objective review.

What were the results?

• Make vs. buy decisions were made much faster, allowing the company to win several strategic contracts that quickly legitimized the technology.
• An additional round of funding was raised even as the economy was entering a significant down turn.
• An acquisition under consideration as the framework was being built was abandoned as no longer a strategic fit. The resources were redirected to a product team that had fallen behind its delivery schedule.