Are You Culturally Positioned to Grow? Attributes of Culturally Growth Oriented Companies (and those that aren’t)

The other day I was reading Frank Hurtte’s blog posting entitled “The Death of a Distributor – The Wrong Kind of Culture” which coincidentally was similar to a discussion that Allen and I had last week.  Recently we’ve spoken with a number of manufacturers and distributors due to a couple of projects.  In the course of the conversations we’ve asked “what makes so and so different (or better)?”

What we’re hearing is that companies that are succeeding, growing or, you may say, taking share, are those companies that are progressive; entrepreneurial; investing in their people and technology; nimble; willing to affect change; marketing proactively (vs events, brochures / catalogs and promotions); and actively planning to make tomorrow look different than today.

What we’re not hearing is the inverse. The distributors who are not taking share; who are growing solely through acquisition; those who improve the bottom line by focusing on cost-cutting and those who are treading water.  These distributors, be they national players, regional companies or purportedly well-known electrical distributors in a state, both public and private companies, are not immune to the market … and unfortunately all are losing share to other players in the industry and, perhaps more importantly, to alternate channels for their customers (other types of distributors, online, etc)

These companies that are not taking share (albeit perhaps growing through acquisition) have a number of commonalities.

They typically are doing things the way that they did them 8-10 (and more) years ago; management thinks in silos and managers essentially “fight” (nice word for “internal politics”) to set up their own kingdoms; departments don’t brainstorm with each other (and especially doesn’t interact with sales to gain sales buy-in for strategies);  implement few new ideas except trying to leverage suppliers for more back-end money; have people proactively leaving; think marketing is brochures, catalogs and events; and other similar traits.  Plus decision-making is strained within the organization … committees, lack of risk taking, and insular in thought process.

The question becomes, what type of distributor are you? What do you want to be?

Leadership starts at the top with a vision of tomorrow and then gets driven through an organization through effective communication and accountability. Some national chains are undertaking changes; others not so much. Some regionals are driving growth and taking share; others not so much.  This issue is less for the “mom and pop” distributors as they have different goals.

As Frank alluded to, culture makes a company. Is your culture consistent with your strategy or do you need to affect change?

Whom do you think exhibits a growth culture? Who doesn’t? What are the key ingredients that need to be present to grow

Perhaps soliciting input from your employees is a place to start?