It’s Strategic Planning Season Once Again…Are You Ready for Breakthrough Performance?

Well, as the humidity of summer begrudgingly gives way to the crisp, kaleidoscope of fall, we once again find our way into the Strategic Business Planning season that is October.  What’s that?  You don’t have any plans to engage in a formal planning process for 2026 and beyond?  To this day, I’m still surprised at how many businesses miss this mission critical opportunity to spark substantial, sustainable growth and outpace their competitors.  Let’s discuss…

If you’ve never been exposed to a dynamic, highly disciplined Strategic Planning process, you may not be fully aware of the power it can deliver to your business.  Having been engaged in developing business strategies for well over 25 years, l’d like to share some examples of how this process impacts organizational performance.

Elkay Products, (https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/19950807/NEWS/308079995/cit-acquires-elkay-products).

In my first management role, my team and I put together a strategic growth plan to stabilize a stumbling, injection molding company (40% of our monthly orders were seemingly on perpetual backorder at the time due to poor historical maintenance).  Within two years, CIT Equity Partners acquired the company and would later sell it toTyco.

STERIS Healthcare Service.

This was my introduction to a more formal, strategic planning process.  As the lead marketer for the business unit, I worked with the team to develop a Strategic Business Plan that turned around a slowing eroding business unit from $96 million to $115 million in the first year of implementation, a growth rate of nearly 20%.

STERIS Scientific Service.

Shortly after that win, I was tapped to relaunch a business unit dedicated to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry (STERIS owned Finn Aqua, a manufacturer of GMP manufacturing equipment).  Within two years, the global Scientific Service team grew from three people (including myself) into a team of over 115 service professionals located around the world.  Having parsed out the scientific business from the healthcare business, we were able to grow the business out from $16 million to $35 million in two years.

In addition, the introduction of strategic services helped lift capital equipment sales from 7% annual growth (moving with the market) to more than 17% annual growth.

STERIS Healthcare, Europe, The Middle East & Africa.

Having introduced a multi-national Strategic Planning Process (versus the traditional “international plan”), our strategy for the business unit enabled us to grow from ≈ $16 million in annual revenue to $40 million in one year.

REVCO Technologies (became Kendro with first acquisition - https://ir.thermofisher.com/investors/news-events/news/news-details/2005/Thermo-Electron-Completes-Acquisition-of-Kendro-Laboratory-Products-2005-5-9/default.aspx).

Recruited to take REVCO from ≈ $120 million in revenue to $250 million in 3 to 5 years, the Strategic Business Plan we developed combined organic growth and acquisitions.  The result was the purchase of Kendro Lab Products in 13 months, bring gross revenue to ≈ $330 million.  The entity was acquired by Thermo-Fisher, within 4 years of our initial strategy, for $833.5 million in cash.

REV.1 Engineering (https://rev1engineering.com/blog/rev-1-engineering-announces-acquisition-by-asahi-intecc-while-attending-mdm-west/).

As the COO of a med tech startup, I brought the company to REV.1 to develop our proof of concept prototype.  I also provided them with our Strategic Business Plan so they understood the context of what we were attempting to do.  REV.1, celebrating their 10th year in business at the time, had plateaued around $3 million in annual revenue and had a valuation somewhere around $5 million.  As such, the owners of REV.1 asked me to create a Strategic Business Plan to help the firm breakthrough to the next level.  Within 36 months (and during the midst of the pandemic), REV.1 was sold for $25 million in cash to ASAHI Intecc.  

The strategy also enabled REV.1 to generate more than $5.5 million in net income on $25 million in sales over the same period of time.  Our strategic plan helped generate more than  $30 million of net income and capital gains for ownership during one of most challenging times in modern, medical device history.

In addition, Performance Transformation’s Strategic Planning work with investor-driven, medical device and life science startups has helped raise more than $100 million in equity financing over the course of the past 18 years.

If you are interested in having a complementary conversation as to how Performance Transformation can help spark strategic growth for your company, please don’t hesitate to reach out at terry@performtransform.com.

© 2025, Performance Transformation, Inc.