Kenco Group Exceeds $1 Billion Revenue Goal Using Strategic Planning
Industry: Logistics Service Provider
Tactic: Strategic Planning
Results
Achieved their growth goal of $1B in revenue within 18 months.
Established organization-wide initiatives with key milestones.
Gained strategic alignment around the company’s value, mission, & strategy to meet the market.
About Kenco group
Kenco Logistics, a nationwide third-party logistics (3PL) service provider, has been offering supply chain, fulfillment, distribution, transportation, and material handling solutions to North America for over 70 years. Since its start in 1950, Kenco has grown to manage over 100 distribution facilities in 33 states and serves over 350 clients with varying logistics needs across a wide range of industries. They’re driven by a vision to redefine 3PL by offering customized innovative solutions on a national scale with the personal attention of a local partner.
The Challenge
In 2020, Kenco had set a revenue growth goal to move the company to a goal of $1 billion in revenue by 2023. To reach such an aggressive goal within just three years, Kenco knew they needed to craft a data-backed strategy design that accounts for their vast internal and external operations, their employee and customer pain points and needs, and their mission, values, and position in the marketplace.
This was no small undertaking. A goal of this magnitude requires project management and planning, extensive research, customer interviews, intuitive thinking, and more. In addition, Kenco knew that if they wanted to reach this revenue milestone, they would need to gain buy-in and alignment at the managerial, director, and executive levels in order for the organization to adopt a new strategy design. So, Kenco Group approached Bridge Innovate to partner with them in the endeavor.
The Solution
Bridge Innovate, experienced in strategic planning, knew that it could help Kenco reach its goals. First, Bridge helped Kenco form a broad leadership coalition to start the journey of defining a strategy. This approach would enable them to reach their aggressive goal while analyzing strategic opportunities across the leadership team, from the director level up to the executive team.
Before a strategic design could be created, Kenco needed to gather a full picture of internal and external trends as well as understand their customer experience through research. Dividing into teams, Bridge coached Kenco through the research process, gathering data, insights, and inspiration for their strategic design. Bridge aided them in interviewing leaders across the industry as well as customers to establish the strengths and weaknesses of Kenco, industry trends, and the opportunities available in the market. With this data, they assessed the threats that would be detrimental to Kenco’s success in developing their strategy or in reaching their goal. Then, Bridge organized a research synthesis session, helping each research team create a summary of their findings and pull out key insights that might influence a future strategy.
What followed was a creative process in which the broader coalition of leaders was formed into teams based on different facets and challenges of the organization as found in the research. These teams were given a topic — i.e. talent acquisition and retention, digital transformation, e-commerce — and were asked to brainstorm and creatively form bold ideas around how Kenco could address these challenges within their strategy. In a pitch session, each team was able to pitch their creative ideas to the executive team, helping to inform how Kenco might respond to the research in their designs.
With extensive research and creative input in hand, a smaller team made up of the executive team and their direct reports entered into the Enterprise Strategy Design session. This was a time for them to narrow the vast amount of information gathered by the research teams to assess how a broader strategy could address the organization’s key issues.
Through visioning and discussion, the executive team was able to evaluate how the strategy design would address and measure key areas. This allowed Kenco to develop a high-level strategic design while also allowing the leadership to detail how they would deliver on key major initiatives within the company to foster a stronger culture, stay agile in the marketplace, and press into innovation.
Throughout the entirely remote strategic planning process, Bridge Innovate was there to guide and support Kenco, acting as the facilitator for every discussion. In addition to managing the massive project, Bridge assisted Kenco in gathering their research. The Bridge team was present at every meeting — providing documentation and capturing information to synthesize.
The Results
In completing their strategic design, Kenco Group achieved tremendous momentum, growth, and innovation. Within just 18 months, faster than they had planned, Kenco hit its revenue growth goal. Not only did they power organic growth; Kenco also built necessary strategic agility across their entire leadership team, using their expanded insights about the market, external trends, emerging disruptions, and their customer base to elevate their perspective around Kenco’s capability. They left with a better understanding of the market space and their position, able to better tackle large initiatives across the company by hitting key milestones.
Gaining buy-in and adoption during strategic planning is challenging — which is why so many strategies often fail to come to fruition in large organizations. Yet, because of Bridge Innovate’s unique approach, Kenco found alignment across the organization’s leadership. In contrast to a traditional firm, Bridge required engagement from the client in the strategic planning process. Instead of Bridge performing the research and dictating the strategy for Kenco, the leaders of Kenco owned the project, designing the strategy themselves, and thus believing in it. Because Bridge integrated the Kenco team into the innovative process, the leadership was invested in its success.
Fully embracing Bridge Innovate’s commitment to innovation, Kenco explored a broad range of inspirational focus areas and a bold ideation approach to enhance customer value and growth. As a result, with Bridge Innovate’s help, the Kenco Group experienced the power of strategic planning, unified its leadership team, and was able to exceed its goals.
Does your leadership team have strategic alignment? Contact us to learn more about how Bridge Innovate can assist you in strategic planning so your team can exceed its goals and grow. Contact us today.