Successful Partnerships and Rewarding Relationships
Hubbell Inc.
Anand helped introduce the culture of lean across our company of 10,000 employees. As a result, over a two- to three-year period, we dramatically reduced the footprint of our business on a square foot per dollar of sales basis. During that time we raised our margins from 10% to around 16% that the company enjoys now.
He also introduced policy deployment to our senior management team. Helping us identify and select the vital few strategic initiatives that mattered most, moved us away from everyone working on a lot of individual projects to accomplishing the critically important ones.
Anand is a great teacher and thinker about the future. I have learned so much from him over the years. He has travelled so widely and seen so much, he has a deep grasp of business trends and their implications that most senior business leaders—whose job is to be on top of such trends—don’t have.
– Tim Powers, former President and CEO, Hubbell Inc.
Pella Corp.
We first started working with Anand and TBM in 1994. We connected very quickly. How they operated—hands-on, down on the factory floor—was very much in line with our culture. Based on a steady record of results, we worked together for many years and formed a very tight relationship.
He helped us make some very tough decisions in those early days. On more than one occasion Anand pointed out how some expensive automated equipment was hurting our productivity, and that we had to tear it out. Those were some tough decisions, but he showed us how it was the right thing to do.
Later, Anand introduced Pella to strategy deployment. He has an innate ability to blend together tactical and strategic work. He can talk tactical details with employees on the shop floor, and he can sit in the executive office and talk about long-term strategy. That’s something that great business leaders are able to do.
– Mel Haught, former President and CEO of Pella Corporation
Vermeer Corp.
We’ve had a long and beneficial relationship with Anand as a consultant and board member of Vermeer. It’s been a real pleasure working with him over the years.
On a personal level, he’s helped me understand the importance of asking why and not being content with the initial explanations when something isn’t going well. As an upper-level executive, it’s easy to become disconnected from operations. You have to dig down until you find out what the true issues are.
– Jason Andringa, President and COO, Vermeer Corporation
Vermeer Corp.
Anand is an excellent teacher who engages clients for the long term. Unlike many consultants, he is very direct and to the point. That’s his style, but it’s also how he gets you to face reality on issues. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
He has a great instinct for focusing on your key business challenges and helping you develop a detailed set of improvement steps. It’s not an easy plan usually, but it will be a workable plan.
Anand taught me that lean is a growth strategy. Lean allows you to grow your business without adding all of the costs you would add following a different management approach. It enables you to free up cash that can be used for growth, such as acquisitions and new product development. That’s why lean has to be part of your culture.
I have worked with Anand for 16 years. We have been able to grow Vermeer substantially since we started working with him and his team. We’ve been able to grow the top line while reducing costs, including the number of new hires we’ve had to make, new capital equipment investments, facility space investments, and the amount of money we have tied up in inventory. Doing all of that while growing our business has been invaluable.
– Mary Andringa, CEO, Vermeer Corporation
Pactiv Corp.
Over the past eight years Anand Sharma and his team have helped me see my role and my operations through a different prism, opening up my eyes to more efficient and better methods to serving our customers with a lower cost structure. The lean process we now have is part of our DNA and has resulted in sustainable gains and provides us with a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Anand’s personal involvement in guiding our senior leadership team to embrace lean and strategy deployment was no small feat. Managing personalities is much more challenging then managing processes. Today I am a better leader and manager in part due to his personal counsel.
His leadership of the TBM team was remarkable as well. Running a geographically diverse company with high-powered, big-ego personalities requires a unique skill set that he managed with impressive results.
—Kevin Quinn, V.P. of Operations, Pactiv