18 detailed Case Studies* of Seegrow’s strategy and implementation work

SaaS: Route Planning

Our client had a novel route-planning technology that cut 35% off the cost of road/rail/pipeline construction. Despite a technology that ought to dominate the market, they were chasing opportunities everywhere and only had five months of cash left before collapse.

Key Outcomes

Raised a US$5m pre-payment from their major client in weeks, averting the cash flow crisis; Our pricing strategy meant new projects now produced four times the income they had previously; Company acquired within a year, at 21x the valuation offered during their cash flow crisis.

Manufacturing: Feed

Our client’s mill manufactured horse feed but it operated at less than 50% capacity. The client wanted to expand sales to increase utilisation and profit by feeding horses outside the racing industry, where the company had a 92% market share. We had a different idea.

Key Outcomes

Client chose to follow own domestic expansion strategy, without investing in marketing, customer/retailer linkages, or a new sales team; As predicted, major competitors undercut their pricing and sales didn't eventuate; Client abandoned their growth plan and invested in our export strategy, focused on their key competitive advantage.

Utilities: Retailing

Our client was a publicly-listed electricity retailer focused on the SME market. The Board sought to expand into the residential market. The CEO wasn’t convinced and needed a compelling reason to say no, as well as a better growth strategy to replace it.

Key Outcomes

The Board abandoned their own growth strategy; Invested in an ERP system to manage operations and billing; Diversified sources of supply; Announced new growth strategy to the market, share price quadrupled in 18 months; Subsequently acquired via takeover.

Services: Cleaning

Our client was a family business that had grown into a second tier cleaning company. The owner wanted to triple turnover in five years and sell it, however the business ran on paper-based systems and an under-skilled management was overwhelmed by paperwork.

Key Outcomes

Didn't invest $250k into an ERP system, growth stalled as they couldn't manage more business; Sat on RTO/Recruitment idea for years, missing a massive growth opportunity; Eventually installed an independent Board who followed our strategy and reached the growth target.

Commercialisation: Dental

Our client was a world-renowned orthodontist who had purchased an American training system to teach dentists how to do quick braces for adults. Having paid for the licence, he couldn’t figure out how to make money by selling training.

Key Outcomes

Followed our strategy, developing their own dentist training content and a high-tech, fast braces product for dentists via an outsourced, virtual business model; Failed to scope and project manage build-out of their online portal, nearly bankrupting the business before getting sales on track.

SaaS: Text Messaging

Our client provided a text messaging service to corporations and governments, used for both two-factor authentication and marketing. In the face of cut-price competition, they needed a strategy to defend and grow their market share.

Key Outcomes

Pivoted their strategy and developed two brands - premium and price fighter - which now dominate the market; Local growth enabled offshore expansion; Developed global partner base with revenue sharing model, including white labelling software for resellers to increase market share.

Manufacturing: Decking

Our client was a manufacturer of plastic/wood decking timber, acquired by a major commodity manufacturer who provided a key input. They saw the cheaply acquired company as a source of vertically integrated growth, but were unable to grow sales as expected.

Key Outcomes

Parent company rejected our turn-key plant strategy to save money - major integration problems meant new plant was 18-months late; No money invested in marketing, distributors refused to stock product; New market positioning enabled a price rise and increased profitability 60%, but with no extra manufacturing capability, sales couldn't grow.

SaaS: ERP

Our client was a second tier provider of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software who wanted help to identify new products to develop and new markets to enter. Lurking in the background were serious issues impacting their capability to grow, let alone profitably.

Key Outcomes

Rationalised service offering focused on core markets, delivering greatest customer value and profit; Eliminating code customisation cut system errors, and customer service costs, and improved customer satisfaction. Company now has 100k monthly users in 28 countries.

Divestment: Wind monitoring

Our client was publicly-listed technology company with multiple divisions, one of which was led by the founder and consuming the company’s resources in never-ending R&D. The CEO needed help to either commercialise the technology, or cut it loose.

Key Outcomes

Technology was sold; R&D resources were reallocated to more promising projects that became highly successful; The Founder was shifted out of the business when the tech was sold; The wind monitoring technology was never commercialised by the new owners.

Commercialisation: Green Energy

Our client was a technology company specialising in portable, renewable energy. Struggling with a long sales cycle because the market needed educating about the technology to generate sales, they lacked cash to build inventory and make product available for instant sale.

Key Outcomes

Sales grew as a result of changing the target market to large-scale corporates; Identifying internal champions inside prospective customers and addressing possible reasons for rejection shortened the sales cycle, improving cash flow; Products were standardised via a robust product cycle rather than being bespoke, halving manufacturing delivery time.

Commercialisation: Mining

Our client was a publicly listed mining services company. They’d developed two new products and wanted to commercialise them to drive top line growth but were burning through cash and getting no market traction.

Key Outcomes

Against our advice, the client continued investing in commercialisation to capture maximum gains; Eventually tried to sell one technology, but over-priced it, trying to recover their investment, and no sale occurred; Company ran out of cash and was acquired for a low price. Their second product is now a leading smelting technology globally, a massive missed opportunity.

Feasibility: Contract Research

Our client was major medical research facility. One of their research labs had stumbled into an accidental business and our client needed to know if there was a sufficiently large business that could be grown and profitably spun out.

Key Outcomes:

Identified: How to restructure and re-price the service offering; Key resource constraints; Critical risks and effective mitigations; Strategy to build a long-run sales pipeline; Customer communication plan; Growth options without major investment. No decision made as yet on next steps.

Services: Environmental

Our client was a large, publicly-listed corporation. Their Environmental Services division had an unfocused service offering, which needed productising so they could grow their sales by expanding their client base and charge for services they were giving away for free.

Key Outcomes

Growth strategy rolled out; Value-based pricing adopted; Restructured service lines quickly captured new business both internally and externally; Loss-making division soon delivered double digit profitability.

Services: Engineering

Our client was a professional service firm providing engineering solutions for large, complex projects. It faced a significant downturn in work after missing key shifts in market demand and faced increased competition. It was operating in silos, lacked a focused sales pipeline, and risked insolvency.

Key Outcomes

Productised services; Used our spidering and focus strategies to identify untapped opportunities for partner alignment and subcontracting to increase project revenue; Repositioned their offerings via the Value Curve; Returned to profitability.

Commercialisation: FMCG

Our client was a group of mates who wanted to replace the ubiquitous tomato sauce single-serve blister squeeze pack with a better design. They had a senior industry contact but needed to figure out a plan and raise funds, as they lacked experience in the FMCG industry and commercialisation.

Key Outcomes

Client was given product development roadmap, budget, and a strategy to engage the FMCG partner; Client went it alone to save money, trying to shortcut a product development process they didn't understand, causing the FMCG partner to pull out; Idea was never commercialised.

Horticulture: Winery

Our client was mid-size winery producing high-quality, hand-picked wines. They were struggling for profitability due to a sales mix dominated by distributors and agents, and carried substantial debt. They had a fantastic cellar door experience but their marketing was weak.

Key Outcomes

Company grew direct to customer sales from under 15% to nearly 50%; Freight costs plunged as direct sals customers now paid for freight, previously a major cost when shipping to distributors; Profitability soared, enabling significant debt repayment.

Services: Logistics

Our client was a new 3PL / 4PL Service Provider, focused on supply chain management, consulting and deep outsourcing integration into clients’ business structures. The company wanted to profitably expand into new market sectors.

Key Outcomes

Instead of following our strategy of key, high-value markets that leveraged their competencies and created barriers to exit, the client took on a massive contract outside their core capabilities. Overwhelmed by the contract's scale and complexity, and going broke because of mis-pricing, the owners fell out and the business folded.

Services: Design

Our client was a small design agency servicing FMCG clients, providing branding, packaging and below-the-line marketing collateral. The owner wanted to grow the business but was conflicted about the client base he wanted to service and the profit he needed to produce.

Key Outcomes

Client focused on FMCG niche to create large-scale growth, using our spidering strategy; Owner shifted focus from Designer to Business Development; Business tripled in 18 months, with four major FMG companies as clients and hundreds of potential growth opportunities across their brands.