Spotlight on delivery in defence: Performance turnaround
The Challenge The initial task was to deliver on the stabilisation plan which included cost savings, significant investment into critical equipment, recruitment and re-negotiation of customer contracts. Within the initial months of the programme, it became apparent that a five-year plan was needed to provide direction for the business, provide a clear transformation roadmap and to secure a new financing package.
Our customer is one of the UK’s largest independent steel companies, and one of the largest private sector employers in their locality. The organisation is an employee-owned business making very large forged and cast engineering parts. Most of its products are bespoke and this includes critical components for the UK and US submarine defence programmes. Due to the decline in both oil and steel prices, they began to lose money and when a potential purchase of the business fell through, the company needed support so it could continue to trade. This support came from its financiers and Tier 1 UK submarine customers. Additional stakeholders included three government departments; MOD (for the submarines), BEIS (as they were seen as a steel business) and Treasury (UKGI a department within Treasury used by other parts of government where commercial issues are at play). A stabilisation plan was developed and part of that required the recruitment of a COO. Our customer is a critical part of the defence supply chain, as they are regarded as the sole capable supplier to key partners in the sector.
“I really like the Project One DNA. There’s a discipline about Project One – we’ve got a turnaround plan and it’s about making sure we don’t deviate from what we’re meant to do. They know how important it is for the company to make crucial improvements and are pushing us every single day.” CEO
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