Primepac is a leading manufacturer and distributor of industrial supplies and packaging products. Primepac is New Zealand owned and operated, supplying companies throughout the country.
Primepac has been on a steady growth trajectory since starting 20+ years ago, achieving significant year on year growth. The business continues to pursue this growth trajectory by continually innovating and developing new products, utilising it’s comprehensive proprietary brand and leveraging an international supply network.
What started as a standard mid-market business has steadily grown and expanded into the Enterprise channel. This has presented new opportunities and complexities that require implementing additional supporting processes and systems.
Primepac is a Family-owned business with a number of family members working in executive roles. Whilst there is a strong Advisory Board and highly competent CEO, the broader Executive Leadership Team (ELT) had limited exposure to professional development or management experience outside of Primepac. The CEO was also intending to progressively step away from operational control to focus on wider Group responsibilities. This presented the opportunity for the ELT to take more responsibility for day-to-day operations and work more cohesively as an Executive Team.
Strategic Specialists Group was engaged to share proven solutions and thinking drawing on a wide variety of past business experiences. They identified that a key enabler to Primepac’s growth objectives was the development of their Executive Leadership Team to focus beyond their functional roles, think more strategically, progressively take on greater responsibility within the business, including a potential financial stake in the future.
Our local Specialist was engaged as an external business coach and mentor to assist with the personal growth of the ELT, assisting them to both meet the immediate challenges of the business, gain personal insights, and successfully implement the wider growth aspirations of Primepac.
The Specialist designed a flexible program that was congruent with the culture, tempo, and ethos of Primepac. This program considered the unique characteristics of each member of the team, with the focus on broadening their exposure to alternate thinking and processes, new leadership skills, and a different perspective on finding business solutions that built on their management experiences to date in Primepac.
The Coaching Program was fully customised for Primepac and followed a 3-Step process over 12 months:
Step 1: Discovery Over a few weeks, our Specialist drilled down into the business to understand the organisational culture, operational metrics, business strategy, external stakeholders, potential roadblocks, key staff and reporting cadence. This was done from the perspective of each member of the ELT.
Step 2: Design In conjunction with the Discovery phase, the Specialist developed rapport with each member of the ELT, identifying specific leadership attributes to develop, relationships with direct reports, immediate challenges, departmental priorities, and personal motivators.
Step 3: Delivery The Design phase naturally morphed into a customised coaching plan for each ELT member focusing on solving operational issues and challenges, skill development mapping, personal leadership style and optimising internal relationships. Whilst the structured coaching sessions were confidential to the respective participants, comprehensive notes were provided at the end of each meeting with discussion points, actions, and future areas of focus. A quarterly progress summary was shared with both the participants and the CEO for feedback and further refinement of the program.
Supplementary meetings in addition to the coaching sessions were added as required to focus in on specific tasks. For example, starting Sales & Operational Planning, developing high potential staff, reviewing the New Product Development process and Budget Planning.
Over a twelve-month period, Strategic Specialists Group achieved the following results with Primepac.
Leadership Team:
Individual Leaders:
Each participant responded positively to the program, is more open to alternative viewpoints and has a more comprehensive understanding of the broader strategic drivers of the business.
The combination of alternative thinking, providing a sounding board and a structured way of solving problems has increased the confidence of the participants to lead their respective teams.
Over a year the program has created an intensive learning experience that has progressively developed leadership skills, personal insights and a self confidence that can be further built on in the years to come.
General Business:
Improved general reporting and the use of targeted KPIs to ensure that departmental metrics are aligned to specific business goals.
Throughout this engagement, Strategic Specialists Group have increased Primepac’s management capacity and ability to navigate the next phase of growth as the business becomes increasingly more complex.
