Meridian Success Story: 1

Advanex, Inc.

A $350 Million Tokyo-based Public Company with 15 International Operations Sets 3 Year Strategic Priorities that Incorporate the Implications of a Shifting Industry Landscape in order to Regain Market Share and Build the Framework to Become a $500 Million Business

• Client Objective: Hire professional facilitators to structure and lead a 3-day offsite corporate strategy session with the firm's international management team that would establish new 3 Year Advanex growth Objectives, key Initiatives, and action plans
  
• MAI Contributions:
  
  1. Session Structure: Meridian guided refinement of the strategic purpose for and structure of this session to address criticisms from Advanex leadership that past years' sessions (run by another consulting group) did not lead to clear accomplishments and direction for the Advanex team 
  2. Team Agreement to 3 Year Growth Objectives and Key Initiatives: This session resulted in agreement to new 3 Year Advanex growth Objectives and a set of three new Initiatives that would be the focus for resource allocation from 2007 -- 2009
  3. Definition of Action Steps and Performance Tracking Metrics: For each growth Initiative, MAI guided the Advanex team to a set of specific action steps, Initiative leader assignments, timetables for completion, and performance tracking metrics
     
• Results:

1. New Growth Initiatives Focus on Countering a Critical Industry Issue: All Initiatives developed in this session, and now being implemented by the company, focused on addressing a shifting industry landscape which saw initial moves by a group of important customers to bring design and processing of Advanex products in-house.
2. Meridian's Guidance in Development of Action Steps Allows a Formerly Stalled Initiative to Move Forward: An Initiative that had been considered by management for several years, but never acted upon, is now moving forward. This Initiative, which calls for establishing a corporate university (dubbed Advanex U), was formally launched by Advanex six months after this strategy session, in January 2007. Credit was given to MAI for guiding identification of action steps that produced a new level of team commitment and "buy-in" for this Initiative. 
3. Session Process Leads to a New Level of Collaboration Among this Diverse, Multicultural Team: For the first time in this company's history, interpreters were used for this semi-annual global strategy session to ensure all team members could fully participate. Interpreters were coordinated by the MAI team and were widely viewed as critical to the meaningful team interaction that resulted.