Background
For 30 years Cicerone has specialised at publishing guide books to the great mountain ranges and walking areas of the world. During this time, Cicerone has developed into one of the leaders in the field with a £500,000 turnover and producing a range of nearly 300 specialised guides to walking, trekking, climbing, mountaineering and biking throughout the world.

The present owner managers had recently bought the business and felt a change of management approach would be of benefit and that their knowledge of strategic techniques needed refreshment. In addition, being a Board of two, and also a husband and wife team, they believed an external review and challenge could be beneficial.

Approach
The Directors attended a 4-workshop course run by AHC aimed at helping companies through the theory of strategy, demonstrating the practical aspects through a case study and experiential learning exercises, and finally the drafting of a strategy for their own company. The Directors completed the course and then asked AHC to act as a sounding board and mentor of the strategy, in the mould of a non-executive.

Benefits
The Company produced a robust strategy which they have managed successfully enabling the Company to ride out the foot and mouth epidemic and then to subsequently grow by over 20%. Now the 4 to 6 monthly reviews provide advice on managing sales forces, channels of distribution and measures of performance whilst providing an objective review of progress on the activities undertaken by both Directors.

Testimonial
"In a small business success depends on both controlling the detail and seeing the big picture so as to develop and execute incisive action plans. Rod’s involvement helps us to achieve this, and to ensure that our thinking is robustly challenged. This has contributed to achieving substantial sales growth, and developing a strong team capable of sustaining this performance whilst radically improving our product (books) and customer service approach. It’s also a lot of fun."
Jonathan Williams, Managing Director, Cicerone