Over the last four years, Maine Point has grown more than 30 percent in an operations management market that's averaging about 5 percent growth. Steven Bowen, Founder, Chairman & CEO of the Boston-based firm, says that growth will help Maine Pointe reach a goal he set when it launched in 2004 to become a $100 million firm.
Bowen has been in consulting for 32 years and says he started Maine Pointe for three reasons. "In previous roles, I had had some experiences that didn't add up for me from a moral and ethical perspective," he says. "I saw some behaviours that did not live up to the values I sought."
Secondly, Bowen saw that no one had actually gone after the end-to-end supply chain market from a pure implementation perspective—a real opportunity, he says.
"Finally, I wanted to combine the partner model of the bigger firms and the business development model of the boutique firms," Bowen says. "We tried to take the best of both worlds and put them together into the Maine Pointe approach to doing business."
Bowen wanted a values-based organization. "Do the right thing, even when no one is looking," he says. "We believe in treating both our clients and our own people professionally and the right way. That's the foundation and the bedrock of the entire company.
The firm was well on its way to achieving its $100 million goal when the Great Recession hit in 2008 creating a profitability pause. But by 2011, Maine Pointe had regained its footing and in 2013 the firm was ready to explode.
During this time, Maine Pointe really hunkered down on specific markets it wanted to serve and developed and honed its total value optimization approach. That approach has led to several client CEO accolades, as well as an endorsement from the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee. Bowen's book, Total Value Optimization: Transforming Your Global Supply Chain Into a Competitive Weapon was released late last year.
"We launched the total value optimization approach in November 2015 and that's driven our growth through 2016 and 2017 and that's really changed the game for us," he says. "As we rolled this out, we noticed that our average engagement size doubled."
Bowen says the original goal of being a $100 million company is well within reach, but the real vision was simply to be the most sought after implementation supply chain firm in the world. "Not necessarily the biggest, but the most sought after," he says. "So, we really focus on driving depth in our industry segments—we only serve five—and each of our three core practices—procurement, logistics and operations."
Bowen says he expects Maine Pointe to cross that $100 million barrier "most likely next year, but certainly by 2020. By the end of 2020, we plan to be a $120 million firm."
In order to achieve those rates, without significantly adding staff—staff will only increase 16 percent in 2017 and 2018 while revenue will grow in excess of 60 percent—Bowen says Maine Pointe works with independent contractors. In order to keep quality control up, the firm launched The Maine Pointe Academy with more than 50 courses aimed at both contractors and full-timers.
"It is a combination of live training and a learning management system online," he says. "The focus is on the Maine Pointe methodology and what we call 'The Maine Pointe Way.' We take this very seriously and the response has been awesome. This tool has changed the game for us."
Headquarters: Boston
Additional Offices: Calgary, Shanghai, Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Service Lines: Operations Management
Client Industries: Manufacturing, Packaged Goods, Retail, Transportation, Energy
Billable Consultants:
2016: 125
2017: 134
2018 (projected): 145
Revenue (in millions)
2016: $41
2017: $53
2018 (projected): $66
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.