I have mentioned several times in this web resume that markets are very simply defined as collections, or sub-sets, of customers. For businesses to be 'very' successful they must not only know their customers well, they must know what their customers next move will be...and plan accordingly. In December 2005, Pentair Electronic Packaging acquired APW Electronic Solutions and in the new organization I picked up the challenge of a brand new role in our company which propagated from a new direction in our business philosophy.

Growth via a vertical marketing strategy.

This was a clear paradigm shift from the conventional model shared by our business, and most businesses, where product managers would develop products for a customer set and then sell that product to all. A one size fits all strategy.

In a vertical marketing model, the business would organize around markets and would focus on specific markets which would which would provide the type of return on investment that the company sought (I cannot be specific as this is a public document)

I had the free pick of markets and I chose Military Aerospace because it would clearly be the most difficult for a commercial company to adapt to but, if successful, would have great rewards.

Vertical Marketing Management ...looking over-the-horizon

The brief was pretty simple, grow the company's military/aerospace portfolio in a business that had weakness in the following aspects of the Military/Aerospace market:

• COTS (commercial-of-the-shelf) products
• sales channel. It was not focused on this market
• dedicated Business processes (DFARs specialty metals, DPAS etc)
• dedicated facility. It is necessary to have a dedicated ITAR ( International Traffic in Arms regulations ) manufacturing site
• export compliance requirements, necessary to be successful in this space
• no clear understanding of the Mil/Aero market's needs or what was over the horizon
• conflict between the needs of a publicly owned company's need to produce quarterly results in a market which may take 4 years to go to production after the initial prototype
• conflict between the companies technological core-competencies and the technology developments within the market

I left the company in Dec 2008 (organization restructure)and by that time I had successfully addressed all of the above with:

• new product roadmap developed which would position the company for the over-the-horizon technologies
• restructured the sales organization with a dedicated sales manager looking after General Dynamics nationally
• restructured the distribution channel
• acquisition of Calmark Corporation which complimented Bitcher products which was part of the APW acquisition
• hired an export compliance manager
• restructured the businesses Poway facility to become an ITAR dedicated facility
• mil/aero sales were now a more significant part of the company's portfolio
• DFARS specialty metals processes introduced

Although I addressed the Military/Aerospace markets, the principles can be applied to each and every market.