Situation
Protech Composites was at a flex point for growth, generating $1 million in sales with its advanced composite products and showing enormous promise in potential markets. For these reasons, it was chosen as a target company for growth acceleration by the federal Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge grant for the Southwest Washington region. Impact Washington approached the company to offer its growth services and Protech readily accepted grant-funded assistance, including a growth assessment, strategic planning and export assistance.
Solution
Protech's main need was the development of a focused, tactical action plan. Impact Washington teamed up with an outside strategic planning expert to provide services for strategic planning.
“Before working with Impact Washington we were simply following where the business took us,” explained Jeff Olsen and Michelle Fennimore, President and Vice President at Protech. “Impact Washington transformed our business by helping us focus our efforts on our most profitable customer segments and actively direct our growth to meet our strategic goals.”
Impact Washington delivered Business Assessment to get a clear picture of where Protech was and where they wanted to take the company over the next several years. The team host a strategic retreat and provided monthly coaching to develop infrastructure that moved the company forward. Another resource partner provided ExporTech and export sales and marketing assistance to Protech.
The new strategic direction helped Protech to identify new products and opportunities for expansion, while narrowing market focus and product mix. The company moved from reactive to proactive decision-making and made the decision to shift from generalists to specialists in their industry. They created a sales plan, clarified roles and responsibilities, introduced lean training and lean manufacturing strategies, and developed an export plan, among other improvements. The company boosted revenue and profits, added new employees and made plans to expand the facility to keep up with its growing capacity.
"Impact Washington helped us set a strategic direction, create and implement key performance measures and develop a system and infrastructure to produce long-term, sustainable and meaningful growth." - Jeff Olsen and Michelle Fennimore President and Vice President / Protech Composites