Three out of four businesses at OMG Fidelity were losing money, making the business unable to meet profit objectives. Core customers were moving business offshore to Asia. The business units lacked focus on profitability and meeting commitments within the organization, and entrenched Business Managers were not working to move the organization forward.

Assessed each business and markets, including accuracy of P&L for each business. Worked with Business Managers to focus efforts on highest growth opportunities. Identified complementary Asian acquisition, gained approval from Board of Directors, and increased margins by moving some production to Asia, changing some formulations, and increasing prices everywhere possible.

Sales increased by 30% and profits by more than 140% in first year. Two out of three businesses are now profitable, and the third is on track to generate positive profit in 2005.

SCP Asia was losing money and in a –$1M negative cash flow position, requiring cash infusion by partners every month. The semiconductor market had slowed down considerably, decreasing actual sales in SE Asia and decreasing the outlook for the next couple of years, as well.

Appointed one of the best service engineers as Training Manager, and accelerated training of the local service engineers. This allowed redeployment of US expatriate service engineers to China, where the team was achieving significant new sales.

Initiatives generated new sources of revenue to achieve a positive cash flow in the first year while breaking even, and achieve profitability in the second year.

Tohoku Semiconductor wanted to be treated as a Japanese customer with a Japanese supplier. One manifestation of this is that they wanted to pay for their equipment in Japanese yen. SCP had only sold equipment in US dollars, and wanted to continue thus. SCP’s lack of historical experience in international markets, coupled with the customer’s insistence on continuing to do business the way they wanted, complicated the situation.

Collaborated with SCP senior management (CEO and CFO) to convince them of the need to execute contracts in Japanese, and sell equipment to the Japanese customers in yen. Arranged for Japanese translations of key contract and financial documents. Analyzed and presented findings to senior management that buying yen futures six months out would hedge the company’s currency exposure, negating any risk on exchange rate fluctuations between receipt of the order and the six-month ship date.

Secured order from the Japanese customer in yen, at a premium price of 25% higher than expected. Achieved additional profits on the currency exchange of $500K due to the successful implementation of the recommended purchase of yen futures.

This was a difficult but important step in the taking SCP into the international markets. Doing business in Japan in Japanese language and currency was a big step from even dealing with Singaporean customers who operate comfortably in English and pay in US dollars. This positioned the company to successfully penetrate the semiconductor markets in China and Korea.

Company’s biggest competitors were Japanese, and the only potential new customers for the memory disk business were Japanese manufacturers. No US manufacturer had ever even tried to market/sell to Japanese customers in this market. Company perception toward competition in the Japanese market was futility.

Assembled a team of American, Irish, Malaysian, and Chinese colleagues to visit key manufacturing sites of potential Japanese customers in SE Asia and Japan. Structured the meetings with the right people, in the right setting, with the matching hierarchy, while illustrating product advantages over the competition and highlighting potential customer advantages. The team recognized the importance of showing the Japanese managers that the company knew how to do business with them, and had the potential to become a solid partner in future success.

Secured product trials on both Japanese target customers’ plating lines before year-end 2004, well exceeding senior management’s expectations, which increased 2004 sales above plan and raised the 2005 forecast even higher.

One of the huge successes of the project was teaching a multicultural team how to deal effectively with a culture that was new to everyone on the team; and to do it successfully, promoting the personal growth of team members in addition to business success. One Irish colleague, who was the Applications Engineering Manager, commented after the first round of successful meetings how exciting this type of activity was, and how thankful he was to have been able to participate in the experience.

Upon joining the company, discovered that all company quotes, quote cover letters and bid packages originated with the Finance Department, with no input allowed from Sales & Marketing. Previous Sales & Marketing personnel did not generate the confidence and trust of the senior management to be allowed the freedom to put together winning bid packages.

As the new Asia Sales Manager, worked with senior management to instill confidence in personal ability to responsibly represent the company’s interests, and convey the need to significantly improve bid packages to win new business in Asia. Worked with Engineering and Process groups to generate significant process and reliability data and write presentations that proved to prospective customers that company products would assist them in improving their process yields and decrease their operating expenses.

During a private meeting with the CEO, convinced him to allow the quoting manager (who had never visited a customer, even in the US) to accompany a visit to a Singapore customer and hear customer comments firsthand in order to understand their requirements better. This had a profound impact on what field personnel were allowed to provide to the customer.

Established new customers in Singapore (Chartered Semiconductor), Japan (Tohoku Semiconductor) and Malaysia (1st Silicon), generating annual sales of $20-40M per year. The company became well known to primary Japanese competitors as having the leading industry bid packages, creating a global competitive advantage for the company.

SCP wanted to pursue a critical new customer in China: SMIC. Customer informed the team that the company was not a viable supplier due to their need to have two suppliers with the same drying technology. SCP would not use anyone else’s dryer technology, nor license existing dryer technology to any other competitor.

Assembled multi-level sales team including CEO, VP of Sales & Marketing, VP of Service, VP of Engineering, CTO, and other appropriate staff. The team continued to meet customer representatives at all levels—from engineers to the CEO—to explain the benefits of using SCP as a supplier. This process continued for more than a year with numerous meetings and personal consultations with both SMIC’s senior management and SCP’s senior management.

The efforts resulted in the first order for $20M, with SCP becoming the largest supplier to SMIC, and receiving their #1 supplier rating. Furthermore, this also vaulted SCP into the leading supplier status in China, #3 in Asia, and from #7 to #2 in the global market.

Volumes were decreasing as more and more US businesses shut down and moved operations to Asia, resulting in declining market share, sales and profits. Most sales efforts and production for three of the organization’s four product lines were based in the US.

Developed a strategy to further penetrate the Asian market and increase profitability by moving as much production possible from the US to Asian production sources and establishing three-tiered Asian acquisition plan.

Sales increased 30%, and profits increased 140% in the first year. Acquisition plan, beginning with the first acquisition in 2005, was approved by the Board of Directors. Sales and profits continue to increase, as does Asian market share, while the Asian acquisition strategy is proceeding exactly according to plan.

Inherited an organization comprised of Chinese, Malays, Sikh Indians, and Filipinos. There were undercurrents of discontent between the various ethnic groups that led to a lack of cooperation fueled by long-standing cultural differences.

Assembled a committee with representatives from each of the Asian cultures, and had them plan group after-work activities such as picnics, billiards, dinners, etc. The barriers between the ethnicities were smoothed over, and an increase in the level of cooperation between employees became apparent.

This improvement contributed significantly to achieving high customer satisfaction scores, exceeding Chartered Semiconductor’s expectations (8.5/10.0) in Singapore, and being named the #1 supplier at SMIC in Shanghai. Increasing this unit’s cohesion was incredibly rewarding.

A product line forecast for 2005 showed a forecast negative margin, after three years of negative margin results. The entrenched Business Manager maintained an operational perspective and was, therefore, mired in the daily details, not able to see out of the box.

Through a number of counseling sessions, influenced the Business Manager to look at his business from a different perspective, in order to identify what he would do to make the business a 15% minimum return business; whether that be moving manufacturing to the moon, buying a competitor, or shutting down part of his business.

After a number of soul-searching sessions with the Business Manager, he came up with a number of actions and strategies that resulted in a realistic 16% margin in 2005, and the business even showed a profit in fourth quarter 2004. Actions included moving some critical manufacturing to Asia; modifying pricing strategy to index prices to key raw materials that were expected to accelerate their cost increases; and strategies to penetrate markets not previously viewed as viable for pursuing both new geographical markets and new products in existing geographies.

The most rewarding part of this experience was being able to teach a manager how to approach things differently, change his perspective on his business, and achieve results that were far greater than could have been achieved unilaterally.