Cruschco – Achieving success against bigger competitors and venturing into international markets

Andre had a vision. But he needed the time and the right strategy and advice to shift the business towards his vision. That’s what he gained with Grow: a partner who brought out his natural talents, helped him find the right people, strategy, game plan, business approaches, infrastructure and investments to take the business to the next level. With Grow’s help he has fundamentally changed the nature of his business, and there’s no looking back for Crushco as they target a bigger goal than ever: competing with the gold-standard incumbent in their local market and expanding into international markets.

When Andre Botha, Director of Crushco Coal Crushers & Engineering started working with his Grow coach, the company had big goals but only a small team. They were working to repair crushers for the industry in their Middelburg-based workshop. His Grow coach described Crushco as a very successful business selling crushing wear parts for the coal and ferrochrome mining industry and performing complicated break-fix repairs and crusher refurbishment.

“… At that stage, we didn’t do any of our own repairs or fabrication. We outsourced absolutely everything…” – Andre Botha

But Andre had much bigger goals. 

“We wanted to build complete machines that could compete with international companies,” he says. 

When he first engaged Grow, he had already designed and developed their crushing machine and had made their first sale. It was a big move and an exciting one. But Andre had to overcome several challenges which made achieving his goal of executing on this new strategy both difficult and stressful.

As a small business owner, Andre was doing almost everything himself. 

“What I’d been struggling with, personally, is being able to balance running the business with growing the business – I was involved in procurement, servicing the client, designing the equipment and being involved in the builds. The more I was involved in one side, the less sales we did – I couldn’t handle it all.” – Andre

Before he worked with his coach, he says, “We were jumping around. We were very niche in crushers, but we didn’t have a formalised strategy set out with clear goals and targets.” Additionally, since they were outsourcing much of the work required to build their crushers, they were not in control of the lead times. Lastly, since someone else was building the crushers, Andre felt this was detrimental to their reputation. 

“There was no credibility. Even though it was our design and we were involved with the fabrication with them every step of the way, if a client came to look at the machine it still felt like someone else was doing the work.” – Andre

He knew it was time to up his game. So, having sold one crusher but managing the build with a supplier partner, Andre decided to invest in his future and the future of Crushco by taking control. He engaged Grow to help him accomplish his broader vision by advising on strategy, recruitment, sales and providing guidance and peer-level support.

Andre’s coach helped him think through and analyse the core challenges he needed to solve for if he was to unlock the potential of his business. They identified that the key challenges Andre faced and would need to solve for included:

• Lack of a clear strategy, including where they should play and, importantly, where they should not be playing.
• Lack of control of lead times and the knock-on effect on timeous delivery.
• Supply chain challenges affected by load-shedding.
• Control of their processes and quality management issues.
• Lack of operational efficiency.
• No credibility – the glory was going to their supplier partner.
• A feeling of isolation.

“I think that’s a major change that happened,” says Andre, “formalising a strategy and defining where we want to play and where don’t want to play.” Grow helped Andre create a clear but rigorous strategy using the Strategy Cascade framework, and a game plan that set out key priorities, in the form of a set of objectives and key results (OKRs), to focus Andre and Crushco on how to execute on the strategy.

Some examples of these key focus areas included:

• Hiring a salesperson, training them up and making them effective in direct client liaison. 
• Moving parts of the manufacturing and engineering work inhouse, starting with welding and a fitter with all the tooling and machinery. 
• Implementing a workshop job management system to prioritise work on the right things at the right time. 
• Diversifying suppliers and increasing businesses relationships where appropriate. 
• Leveraging MRP and CRM tools to better manage operations and administration parts of the business. 
• Building an outbound lead generation capability within the sales environment.

His Grow coach also helped Andre hire and develop Avinash in the role of Technical Sales. “The moment we interviewed him,” says Andre, “we knew there was something special about him.” However, it took a while to get him up to speed and maintain his patience, commitment and positivity as the industry’s extremely long sales cycle progressed. During this process, Crushco’s Grow coach started coaching Avi too, helping him understand sales and working with sales processes, communication and client engagement. Now, Andre says Avi is starting to get momentum, “and the feedback we’re getting from clients is amazing because he’s such a respectful person and works with people with so much patience.”

Crucially, the support of Andre’s Grow coach has become invaluable to him. “One of my biggest challenges was feeling isolated,” Andre explains. “I don’t have other Directors I can lean on, from a technical perspective. Now I can phone my coach and we can quickly work on something and find a solution.”

“An unintended consequence, but no less material, is there is a significant cost-benefit by doing it in house. Andre can actually do it more cost-effectively than outsourcing it.” – Grow coach

Today Andre has sold 9 (as at publishing and counting) of his own machines and is able to maintain stock for the delivery of wear parts. Crushco can now fabricate and build their crushers in-house, thanks to their improved production capability, welding and fabrication investment and upskilling. Additionally, by employing and nurturing Avinash, it is allowing Andre to focus on the business instead of being side-tracked by urgent client requests.

Turnover is significantly up, with increased cashflow funding further investment in business capability. “By bringing the machines in, increasing the margins on the machines, we were able to actually expand equipment and facilities,” says Andre. Indeed, the company has purchased its own property after renting premises for 13 years.

“Going in-house also allowed us to make changes and be more responsive to our clients needs.” – Andre

New strategic partnerships with suppliers abroad have ensured a consistent, guaranteed supply of parts with better quality, at a lower price. They no longer have a frustrating delay in lead times enforced on the local market by loadshedding.

From a personal perspective, Andre is now able to focus on strategic business growth, rather than distracting day-to-day challenges.

Andre says, “The biggest thing for us, by bringing it in-house, was having control over the process as well as the credibility from our clients.” He has saved costs, invested in the business and its infrastructure, reduced supplier dependency and improved his business resilience. 

Additionally, Crushco is now able to compete against international suppliers and the gold-standard incumbent supplier in South Africa while retaining their competitive advantage.

By narrowing their market focus, they have significantly increased turnover, sold 9 machines they proudly built themselves, enabled future growth investment and given Andre the time and focus he needed.

Importantly, Andre says, “It feels like I’m not alone anymore.” Andre started with no experience as a business owner, so he admits he has a lot of areas where he has shortcomings but, he says, “My coach has been helping me to touch up everywhere, all over the place. That is invaluable for me. That he’s a call away and he’ll put in the effort to help me find that solution. It’s invaluable for me.”

“Knowing that my coach is a call away and he’ll put in the effort to help me find that solution. It’s invaluable for me.”