MTI enabled strategy for USA’s Limoneira published as a case study
A global expansion strategy carried out by MTI Consulting on
behalf of Limoneira, the Nasdaq listed and USA’s
largest lemon producer has become an international business case study.
Titled ‘Making lemonade from lemons: The role of client –
consultant knowledge as the Limoneira Company goes global,’ the case study by
Jason Cordier and Tahir Hameed has been included in ‘Management Consultancy
Insights and Real Consultancy Projects’ published by Routledge.
It illustrates how social capital and strong inter-personal
skills and relationships positively influenced consultant and client learning,
thereby influencing an array of project outcomes.
“At the end of the MTI project we decided to go-to-market directly with our lemon business utilizing our vertically integrated supply chain and the Limoneira brand. Looking back we are extremely pleased with that decision which has paid off significantly as reflected in our business performance and financial results. MTI played a pivotal role in this exercise and did so while getting the buy-in and inclusiveness of our team.” said Harold S. Edwards, the President & CEO of Limoneira.
Context
The Limoneira Company established itself in the cultivation
of lemons, oranges and walnuts in 1893. By 2000s Limoneira had become a leading
global producer of lemons, oranges and avocados and the largest lemon producer
in the United States. It also had interests in real-estate, solar farming etc.
At the time Limoneira was a member and the largest lemon
producer of the powerful Californian citrus grower cooperative; Sunkist.
Sunkist was the largest fresh produce shipper in the US at the time and the
most diversified citrus processing and marketing cooperative in the world. It
had developed a well-managed brand as well as an extensive array of market
subsidiaries and channel partners throughout the world, which marketed and sold
the growers’ products on its behalf.
Limoneira’s relationship with Sunkist (of which Limoneira
was a founding member) was seen as double-edged sword by the company’s newly
appointed CEO/President Harold Edwards and Senior Vice President Alex Teague.
Since the early 1900s, Sunkist had been responsible for
almost all of Limoneira’s market access, and accordingly the vast majority of
its revenue. Sunkist offered stability and the relationship with the marketing
cooperative enabled Limoneira to focus on its specialization; growing lemons.
However this came at the opportunity cost of having the
sales potential limited by the cooperative’s framework, restraining Limoneira’s
future growth prospects. The number of fresh fruit lemons that could be sold by
Limoneira was limited by Sunkist’s quota system, even if their fruit quality
exceeded other growers, or if buyers specifically requested more of Limoneira’s
product.
Alex Teague states, “The Sunkist system only teaches the
class up to the level of the lowest level kid in the class.”
Limoneira’s strategic intent was to make a quantum leap in
its production and sales from its then production level of 1.5 million cartons
to 12.5 million cartons, which required a 365 day supply chain. However due to
seasonality of lemons (market demand is met alternatively between northern and
southern hemisphere growers) and being a California based grower’s cooperative,
Limoneira could not operate a 365 day supply chain.
At the time United States held a solid position in
medium-sized markets like Japan and Canada, while Spain, Turkey and Argentina
were key suppliers to the EU markets where Sunkist had little presence. Around
2007 another group of importers emerged from the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, China
and Serbia.
Hence to tap into these markets and to operate a 365-day
supply chain, Limoneira had to leave Sunkist.
Preparing for
take-off
After being appointed CEO/President, Edwards, together with
Teague, addressed the top heavy structure of the company by downsizing 29
management and supervisory positions without any lawsuits. They also changed
what was deemed an entitlement process by hourly employees to a performance
based incentives model.
Limoneira thereby had developed a lean and closely knit team
as well as an exceedingly efficient production operation that resulted in high
quality fruit which became sought after both nationally and internationally.
The preference for Limoneira’s fruit by domestic and
international buyers – such as Japan – started to signal to Limoneira’s
management team that perhaps they could go it alone and expand market share.
However, while Limoneira held an excellent base of knowledge regarding the
dynamics of producing lemons, it knew little about accessing alternative
channels outside of where its fruit was currently sold, the value of these
channels and what markets/product categories to optimally position itself
towards.
MTI Entry
Limoneira’s strategic intent to make a quantum leap in its
production and sales from 1.5 million cartons to 12.5 million cartons required:
·
A
rationale for Limoneira’s strategic intent to expand globally
·
Conformation
that with leaving Sunkist there would be increased profitability, not just
increased market share without profitability
·
Approval
from the Board of Directors to leave Sunkist
·
A
comprehensive strategic plan that provided a detailed road map, clearly
directing strategies into executable steps related to marketing, sales and
distribution on a global scale
·
Employees
culturally shifting to a global mind-set
MTI Consulting, a management consulting firm headquartered
in Bahrain, was selected at this stage by Limoneira to assess the viability of
leaving Sunkist, as well as establishing a global expansion plan from which the
board of directors could weigh the risks of leaving their lifelong partner
Sunkist.
MTI Consulting had conducted over 400 projects across 40
countries going into 2008. While it operated in the domains of corporate
finance, technology and market research, its bread and butter was strategic
consulting.
MTI Consulting was experiencing a busy year with 35 projects
occurring across the markets in which MTI operated. Capacity was limited,
especially amongst senior consultants. The project also required dealing with a
client in a country where MTI had no physical presence.
Furthermore, the project scope required looking at Limoneira
optimally operating across a great portion of the world and accordingly
entering new markets. This would entail time on the ground in markets where MTI
had no presence, dealing with a product category that MTI had no previous
experience with, and accordingly possessing no market contacts.
Approach &
Methodology
The extensive number of markets involved in the project, the
nature of the project, and limited codified market data availability brought
complexity to the project.
From experience MTI CEO, Hilmy Cader had come to believe
that the most successful projects were ones that were highly integrated between
the client and the consultant. This factored into the approach MTI used on this
project and the consultants whom MTI deployed. A strong relationship with the
client leverages the client’s knowledge, which is most critical, particularly
in larger international strategic projects where unknown variables can compound
quickly.
Hilmy states, “We resist the urge to imply we know more than
the client in their domain as a means to justify our value and fee, as we
don’t. They know their business. We deliver our value by working side by side
with the client.”
The project required searching, collecting, analyzing and
synthesizing explicit and tacit knowledge available within consultant’s own
team, client, client’s partners, customers, competitors, and industry and
global supply chain. It also required prioritization – with focus only on that
information which supports the project objectives
The information-related challenges were addressed through a
very strong consultant-client relationship where MTI was granted deep access
from the top of the organization. This was further facilitated by the
consultants and the clients warming to each other quickly at a personal level.
MTI used its in-house 8-step strategic planning process
called the ‘8S PlanScape’ for the Limoneira project. It rests on established
business theories and industry experience with practices comprising of external
and internal environment scanning, forecasting, planning, organizational
design, control systems and social responsibilities.
For the project, each of the PlanScape tasks were then
broken down into sub-tasks and mapped onto nucleus modules. The nucleus is
another proprietary scoping tool developed by MTI which helps project teams
identify specific elements of knowledge for the task or project. It also
identifies the sources of business intelligence (BI) and how it could be
acquired.
In sum, the nucleus’ role is to help the project team define
the BI activity, gather a sense of the required knowledge management technique
(i.e. explorative or exploitative) and develop methods and strategies to
acquire the BI. These focus around capturing both explicit and tacit knowledge.
As the Nucleus moves down into more specific subunits,
broader questions are replaced with more detailed project questions. As the
Nucleus is only a project plan, it often evolves considerably as phases of the
project are implemented. While knowledge is not static, a solid basis outlining
what needs to be asked is however required at the planning stage. Outlining BI
methods acts as a foundation to allocate resources, identify areas where
knowledge exists and map out where knowledge does not exist.
In the case of MTI consulting, such plans often work on lean
documentation that attempts to remove unnecessary text from internal
documents.
What was of considerable significance for this project was
not only the value created by varied forms of BI, but how they resulted in
strategy formulation and particularly the creation of new knowledge. The matrix
of BI was employed to deliver a business solution that the client not only
bought into, but held a strong role in the developmental process and the final
solution.
The exploration of knowledge for MTI was first based on
client domain knowledge. The acknowledgement that MTI were not lemon
specialists, had not worked in the lemon or even citrus market before, acted as
a pillar for inquiry – although MTI had worked in the agricultural sector
before.
The client knowledge is also initially explored as MTI
employs the concept of a ‘clean slate’, where consultants would initially
resist the urge to draw from pervious experiences to develop a solution – which
could be sub-optimal.
Limoneira’s performance culture also strongly supported
learning and explorative knowledge positioning. This culture was particularly a
result of Harold Edwards’ leadership approach when becoming the CEO and the
legacy of how Limoneira had operated in an open and inclusive manner.
MTI leveraged Limoneira’s good relationships to develop open
forums from and applied cross-market learnings and to address the complexity.
While MTI itself faced knowledge transference issues with
its project team working across multiple markets, a strong and supportive
culture within MTI resulted in knowledge sharing. The firm’s culture challenges
its consultants never to think of themselves as experts on a position.
Outcome
War gaming, market analysis and channel strategies were
presented to the executive management and board. The board – while largely
excited about growth prospects beyond Sunkist – was initially uneasy about
leaving the cooperative given the business climate created by the global
financial crisis.
The executive management however, having worked very closely
with MTI were more bullish in their position. The final MTI-client solution
that was presented to the board shared the position of the executive
management. Arguably, MTI’s status as outsiders, coupled with the client’s
strong industry knowledge made the initial unease of leaving Sunkist more
palatable to the board of directors.
A close partnership between Limoneira executives and
consultants – in which areas of strategic concern had been worked through and
challenged from often differing positions – resulted in a strong yet balanced
position being presented to the board.
Limoneira listed on NASDAQ in May 2010 and also announced
that it would be leaving Sunkist as of November that year. The market would
react favorable over the coming days with a 19% increase in the value of
Limoneira’s shares.
Photo: Hilmy Cader, CEO MTI Consulting and Jason Cordier, MTI’s International Consultant and Case Study Author, Harold S. Edwards, the CEO & President of Limoneira
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