MAPP Business Assessment Valuable Tool for Team 1 Plastics

As we approach the end of the year, it’s a perfect time to take stock of your company. How are you doing? Is your business achieving its goals? Is your business growing and prospering? Have you reached a revenue plateau that you just can’t seem to get past? Do you spend a lot of time on problems that keep returning? What do you need to focus on next?

A tool that can help you answer these questions is a Business Assessment. According to First Beacon Business Advisory Group’s website, “A business assessment is an objective look at your business designed to provide you with a clear picture of:

Where your business is today
What will help you get to where you want to be tomorrow
What might hinder or impede your progress, and
What specific actions can be taken to address all these issues.”

Those are exactly the questions that Team 1 Plastics, a plastic injection molding company for the transportation industry, sought to answer when it took advantage of the Business Assessment that MAPP (Manufacturers Association of Plastics Processors) offers to its members. Through MAPP, Team 1 contracted with Harbour Results, Inc. (HRI) for a two-day Business Assessment, which according to HRI’s website, “takes an up-close look at a company’s entire operation to identify specific areas of strength and potential gaps.”

Craig Carrel, President and Co-owner of Team 1 Plastics, explained the process of signing up. “It is pretty simple to sign up for the Business Assessment, and it is available to any MAPP member. It costs $4,500 plus travel expenses and two days of time for most of the management team.” He added that there is some preparation work that a company needs to do prior to the on-site assessment. “HRI sends out a data request a few weeks prior to the assessment. That preparation work does require several hours of time for each department to collect and report its data.”

Next comes the on-site assessment. “Harbour Results brings in a team of three or four people that spend the first day talking and reviewing the company’s functional departments,” Carrel said. In Team 1’s case, that was nine departments. He continued, “The HRI team then spends the evening together reviewing the information collected and preparing the follow-up questions they will ask on the morning of the second day. By the afternoon of the second day, they have wrapped up their data collection and review and put together a final assessment report. The report is then presented to management and gives both recommendations for improvement to the overall company and to the specific departments reviewed.”

This was the second time that Team 1 Plastics has taken advantage of MAPP’s Business Assessment through HRI. Carrel said, “Our first MAPP assessment was done in May 2010. It was a critical first step in our strategic planning process and development of our company’s goals. As we reviewed the company’s progress since 2010, we found that many of the items identified in the first assessment had been accomplished. Now, seven years later, we felt that it was time to have another assessment done.”

Team 1 Plastics’ score after the 2017 assessment was in the “top quartile of all MAPP assessments.” Carrel said, “This score was not surprising and was about where I thought it would be. We have seen significant progress since our 2010 assessment. The 2017 assessment is of a much different company. The main takeaway was that we have room for improvement and that we can work to make Team 1 a stronger company in the future.”

He noted that HRI’s three main recommendations for Team 1 Plastics focused on these areas:

Continued development of the Leadership Team
Utilize data to continue to drive improvement in company performance
Develop a strategic sales plan

After the assessment, the management of Team 1 Plastics met together and assigned tasks and people responsible for these three main recommendations. And progress is being made. Carrel said, “The managers met together to suggest company improvement areas, and we are in the final stages of implementing them. In addition, the sales team developed and presented its strategic sales plan to the company in September. We will be using it to drive activity to achieve our long-term sales growth targets.”

In addition, each individual department has reviewed its specific recommendations and has selected the top one to three items on which to focus. Carrel explained, “We cannot implement all of the recommendations right now. All this activity must fit into our daily job responsibilities, along with other strategic objectives we are working on. So, we try to focus on the recommendations that have the biggest potential for overall improvement.”

In evaluating the Business Assessment, Carrel said that “it is hard to have someone critique your company and identify weaknesses and areas for improvement. But, if you want to be world class and compete globally, it is critical for you to get an unbiased opinion from someone who is very knowledgeable and seen many similar operations.”

He highly recommends the MAPP Business Assessment. “The payback is significant if you take the time to analyze the recommendations and implement the ones that make the most sense for your operations. Our first assessment in 2010 helped drive us forward over the last seven years, and we expect the 2017 assessment will do the same.”