The Challenge

Netafim USA is the largest operating division of the privately held, Israeli company, Netafim Corp., which was founded in 1965 by Simcha Blas to commercialize his early discovery of drip irrigation technology. Today, the company is a global leader in smart drip and micro irrigation solutions.

After an early period of rapid growth, the company's U.S. operations began to see revenues flatten and decline due to intense competition, a proliferation of new entrants, and a cyclical economic downturn. When ParCon Consulting was engaged, historical double digit growth rates had plunged to contraction of 2% and profits were suffering.

The Solution

Netafim selected ParCon Consulting to facilitate an agile strategic planning process. In less than one month, the division’s senior leaders and management team developed and aligned around a strategic plan that could reignite the growth rate by focusing resources at targeted crop markets and geographic regions, while simultaneously supporting a continuous improvement effort in manufacturing and customer care focused on enhancing profitability.

The company embraced ParCon’s unique approach to Strategy Mapping and Horizon Planning™, as a way to drive increased discipline in long-range planning and execution. In order to streamline annual planning and roll-up efforts, a linkage between the strategic planning process and the annual budget was established saving time while insuring that long-range planning and short term bedugets were aligned.

To improve long-term execution and accountability, the leadership team worked with ParCon to develop and deploy both initiative and measures performance dashboards supported by enhanced strategy governance consisting of regular management meetings to review progress & make corrections along the way.

The Results

Eighteen months of leadership commitment coupled with disciplined follow through and strategy governance paid off handsomely. Formerly stagnant growth rates increased steadily to over 15% per year. Profitability was significantly improved across the board because of continuous improvement efforts in operations. Through the sustaining management processes developed through the effort, growth continued at double digit rates for over 5 years.