Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

November 27, 2006

Inside job | How a consulting business developed its own strategic reorganization plan

By Taylor Smith
When a company is faced with a major reorganization, the first phone call often is to a consultant, someone who can come in and quarterback the process while the managers can keep the day-to-day details of the business running. But what happens when the company undergoing a reorganization is a consulting company?

That's been the test for Patrick O. Murphy, president of what's now known as Pan Atlantic SMS Group. The Portland-based company until earlier this month was an amalgam of three separate firms, Pan Atlantic Consultants, Strategic Marketing Services and Pan Atlantic International Training. The companies all lived under one roof, sharing staff and resources. Work was traded back and forth, projects were bounced from one side of the offices to the other.

But those arrangements became untenable ˆ— largely because there was concern that clients were unsure of the relationships between, say, Strategic Marketing Services and Pan Atlantic International Training. In short, change was needed. "We found over the years that we had some brand confusion in the marketplace," Murphy says. "So we did what we do for other people ˆ— we went out to find out what people thought about us."

Instead of focusing on a strategy for a client, Murphy and company turned their collective vision inward, studying everything from operations to the three companies' individual brand strength. The result, says Murphy, was a determination that combining the companies would certainly clear up that brand confusion as well as streamline operations.

Such a move can be risky, though. Steve Darnley, founder of Tugboat Creative, a marketing and branding firm in Portland, says companies thinking of consolidation should make sure they won't alienate customers by putting everything under one tent. He asks, why water down one brand just for the sake of reorganizing?

That said, if the reorganization ultimately benefits customers, then the company's better for it. "If they're trying to present one big integrated package like that, then yeah, it makes sense to put it all under one brand and to project that this company can do all this stuff," says Darnley.

So far, says Murphy, the reaction among customers has been good, and he adds that the change is likely to pay even greater dividends going forward in terms of better brand recognition. Beyond the customers, though, the upside of the restructuring has been streamlining the company's operations, says Murphy. For example, the company recently spent about $50,000 on a new website that Murphy says has simplified operations. For example, the international training division helps domestic companies like Hilton Hotels bring in foreign management trainees by getting J-1 visas from the U.S. government. Previously, a Pan Atlantic employee did all the paperwork for those visa applications by hand. Now, those forms are handled electronically thanks to a specially designed Web page. "We spent $40,000 on that alone, but now we don't have to have anyone do that paperwork," says Murphy. "It will pay itself back in a very short time."

And in the simplest terms, says Murphy, the website has been a marketing boon ˆ— especially compared to the outdated and clunky collection of Web pages that made up Pan Atlantic's old site. "It has really helped us clarify for the world how these services operate in tandem," he says. "That's always been a challenge for us."

Cross-fertilization
Murphy, a native of Waterford, Ireland, started Pan Atlantic Consultants more than two decades ago after spending five years as a consultant in New York. Early on, much of the firm's work relied on his countrymen and other European businesspeople wanting to break into the U.S. business community. Some were exporters, while others searched for distributors. Still others aimed to plant a flag in American soil through an acquisition of a U.S. firm.

These days, Murphy says most of his clients are companies with revenues in the $5 million-$50 million range, though he also counts as clients larger firms such as Westbrook-based Idexx Laboratories, which last year posted revenues of $638 million. Pan Atlantic has worked with scores of community banks across the country, says Murphy, tracking customer satisfaction and product launches. The company works with state agencies like the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, which every few years hires Pan Atlantic to track substance use and abuse trends among Maine high school and middle school students.

While Pan Atlantic still works with overseas companies, an increasing number of international customers are hoping to lure American companies overseas. Recently, the company worked with Invest in Germany, a group funded by the German government's Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, to identify North American high-tech companies interested in expanding into Germany. Pan Atlantic vetted thousands of companies in two high-tech test markets in Ontario, Canada, and Austin, Texas, whittling the list down to a few dozen that fit the group's bill. "It was a lot of work, but it was a good
project for us," says Murphy.

With the recent reorganization, the company's employees in each division will have more involvement in each project. From a management perspective, that's good use of the workforce; from an employee perspective, it's a way to keep the job interesting. Murphy says Pan Atlantic will see more "cross-fertilization" among its staffers, with, say, a statistical researcher working with a team to develop a new corporate strategy for a client.
"The biggest institutional change is that we've brought it all together," says Murphy.

Change is tough for most companies, whether it's moving offices or shifting corporate strategy. But that's Pan Atlantic's business, and Murphy knows well the power of change, from fine-tuned tweaks to major overhauls ˆ— even if it's for his own company. "Whether it's Madonna or it's us," he says, "reinvention is absolutely necessary."

Pan Atlantic SMS Group

President: Patrick O. Murphy
Founded: As Pan Atlantic Consultants in 1985; reorganized as Pan Atlantic SMS Group, November 2006
Employees: 15 full-time employees; 20 part-time
Services: Strategic market research, marketing consulting, business planning, international training
Revenues: Did not disclose
Contact: 871-8622
www.panatlanticsmsgroup.com

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

Comments

Order a PDF