A Vitamins and Supplements Company Transforms Development Process to Achieve 40% Growth

Client Context

• A $300 Million revenue private equity owned nutraceuticals company producing wellness products sold through19 brands world-wide
• They recognized their path to growth required improved product development to achieve their growth targets.
• The company required a drastic transformation to their ability to introduce new products in order to achieve their aggressive goals of growing the business from $300M to $500M

Key Challenges

The company had recently attempted a failed, internally led development transformation effort. Individual animosities and resistance this effort had created compounded the challenge of creating credibility and engaging personnel in a constructive manner to properly introduce Lean Development Methods.

• Lack of internal tracking or any analytics associated with the performance of the system
• No clear ownership with infighting at leadership level for the process
• Animosity and fear from firing of high level personnel who had led the previous failed attempt
• Previous attempt had centered on a forcing the use of a tool which was largely disliked
• Lack of understanding how people fit into the overall development process
• Significant gaps in both critical data and linkage of data across for both historical and current projects

ARGO-EFESO’s Approach and Actions

Argo Partnered with the the leadership beginning with an education of what effective development entails. A key person was identified as the person who would work directly with Argo to learn from Argo and become the conduit to the client organization as a whole. The new strategy, model and actions included:

1. Assess the situation

• Over 250 unique issues were identified which needed to be addressed.

2. Stabilize the Process

• Immediate triage to stop the issues driving poor performance
• Categorize Projects
• Eliminate Clutter
• Engage ELT in approval & oversight

3.Bring Accountability To The Process

• Separate creative process from execution
• Standardizing project types

4. Increase Visibility & Build The System

• Map current to transition to lean processes
• Collaboratively build the system with the people doing the work
• Institute Visual Management, metrics, & oversight

Results

58%

Created a development process which reduced the Time-to-Market by 58%

2X

Doubled the new products delivery capability with the same personnel

70%

Improved the predictability of new product delivery 70%

Improved moral and employee engagement