Greg Bicket needed to get his company back to the basics.
Over the years, Cox Target Media Inc. had diluted itself. The approximately 1,000-employee wing of Cox Enterprises, a $15 billion media giant that includes cable television service provider Cox Communications, had covered a lot of ground in its quest for growth. Over the past couple of years, as the economy faltered, Bicket came to the realization that Cox Target Media had become too diffused. The result was a company that performed decently at a number of endeavors but wasn’t striving for greatness in any single area.
He decided that his company — which produces Valpak promotional products — needed a renewal of focus. And that it would need to start from his perch as the company’s president.
“We were trying to cover too wide a waterfall,” Bicket says. “It made staying in the same spot an unattractive option. We had built a new plant, which represented a lot of capital invested, and it was not unlike the Airbus, where you have a tail made in Portugal, an engine made in Britain and a wing made in Germany. It took a very complicated set of tasks to bring it online, and it took awhile. Then you combine it with other issues around increasing competition and the global economy turning sour, it all converged and created a kind of semi-perfect storm.”
Cox Target Media needed to renew its focus on understanding customer needs and wants, understanding the markets it serves and creating materials that stimulate transactions for customers.
“It was really the essence of our brand, so to a degree, it was really like returning to the roots that built the business, but doing it in a more focused way,” Bicket says.
Refocusing a business unit of 1,000 people takes a vision, followed by consistent and constant communication of that vision. It’s why the process needs to start at the top of the company.
What followed for Bicket was a process of logging air miles, delivering speeches and soliciting feedback. It sounds like Business 101 blocking and tackling, but threading through it all has to be an unwavering belief in your plan and a desire to do whatever it takes to get employees at all locations and levels on board.