A Culture Transformation: How SupplyCore Inc. Re-Envisioned Strategy Execution

SupplyCore did not know it at the time, but Peter and his team were mirroring Brightline’s 10 Guiding Principles, with its approach to strategy execution. First and foremost, SupplyCore’s leadership team understood that strategy delivery is just as important as strategy design (Brightline Principle 1). In addition, among other outcomes, Goal Maps promoted team engagement and effective cross-business cooperation (Brightline Principle 6). More than anything, SupplyCore embraced a culture of strategy execution and its growth continued to scale. When the company made the Inc. 500 list for the fifth year in a row, Inc. inducted SupplyCore into the Inc. 500 Hall of Fame. The plans the team achieved were bold, and they were able to stay focused, just as Brightline’s Guiding Principle 5 advises.

Not only did SupplyCore’s culture of execution support these robust plans, it also allowed for missteps so the team could fail fast to learn fast (Brightline Principle 9). This philosophy proved especially important once the world changed, and business took a turn for the worse.

After SupplyCore’s rampant growth, sales flattened and eventually declined from 2008 through 2012. “There was little to believe in from our financial results. But for our faith in our strategic plan, we dialed into short-term objectives that intimately related to the long-term outcomes we wanted to achieve,” says Peter. “We broke long-term complex milestones into bite-sized chunks where we could recognize results sooner and derive faith from smaller achievements. Ultimately, we won more contracts and began to grow again.”

Nevertheless, SupplyCore’s team knew they needed more.

After many years of use, Goal Maps was getting old. It worked for SupplyCore at the time, but it was not up to date with modern technology, and it became cumbersome as the company grew. Team members became reluctant users, and new employees found it tedious to navigate. Organizationally, the company had hit a wall.

Goal Maps did not have a central dashboard that unified all the information the management team needed on plan execution. Search and navigation were not intuitive. An associate could find his own work easily, but not others’ and the interface had become dated. SupplyCore’s VP of IT knew it was time to upgrade the system, so that’s just what they did, building all of these functions.

Visibility, collaboration and alignment improved, and the upgrades propelled employees’ adoption of the system as well as reinforced SupplyCore’s culture of execution. Peter and his leadership team knew that other companies could benefit from this software as well. Therefore, they renamed it MPOWR Envision®, and took it to market in 2019, along with vital strategy development and execution services.

“A large business segment for us experienced severe gross margin pressure over the last decade. We were able to remain profitable despite because we planned for the gross margin compression and executed our plans to address it. Even in difficult times, we are able to communicate and react in ways many organizations cannot. It’s not only helped us grow, but also to avoid expenses and mistakes, and minimize gaps between departments,” says Peter.

For example, SupplyCore’s Operations team was implementing a new contract. As they gave visibility to the project in MPOWR Envision, the Business Development team noticed that some key elements were not a part of the implementation. Managers from Business Development immediately reached out to Operations to add the elements, saving SupplyCore significant time and costs.

SupplyCore is proud to say they are not the only ones seeing the benefits of executing strategy. Since taking MPOWR Envision to market, they have seen their customers save time, increase productivity as well as team and data connectivity, and grow revenue.

“Companies see results because they’ve embraced a better way to manage strategy execution – a way to balance looking through the windshield at what’s on the hood with what’s down the road, and taking action,” adds Peter.