Understanding the Starting Point

Consider the challenge of running a growing international marketing agency where success paradoxically leads to diminishing returns. This was the situation facing Avneesh Gupta as President and CEO of ThinkTech. Despite serving numerous customers and expanding across multiple countries, the company faced a perplexing problem: increasing revenue wasn’t translating into corresponding profit growth.

This scenario is similar to a restaurant that’s always full but struggling to make money – high activity doesn’t always equal high profitability. The challenge becomes even more complex when you add the dimension of managing teams across different countries and cultures, each bringing their own perspectives and ways of working.

The Complexity of Their Challenge

The situation ThinkTech faced went beyond simple operational issues. They were confronting what we might call the “scale paradox” – where growth actually amplifies underlying inefficiencies rather than creating economies of scale. Two primary challenges emerged:

Profit Efficiency: Despite high operational activity and a substantial customer base, profit margins remained stubbornly low. This is like having a car that burns more fuel the longer it runs – a fundamental efficiency problem that gets worse with increased usage.

Cultural Cohesion: As the organization expanded internationally, maintaining a consistent culture and value system became increasingly difficult. Imagine trying to conduct an orchestra where each section is in a different country – technical proficiency alone isn’t enough; you need harmony and synchronization across all parts.

The initial attempts to solve these problems through conventional means – hiring more people and increasing salaries – actually exacerbated the situation by adding to operational costs without addressing the root causes of the inefficiencies.

The Transformation Process

The journey from a traditional marketing agency to a high-profit consulting firm involved several fundamental shifts in approach:

Business Model Evolution: The transformation from a regular marketing agency to a consulting firm wasn’t just a change in title – it represented a complete reimagining of how value is created and delivered to clients. This shift is similar to moving from being a commodity supplier to becoming a strategic partner.

Operational Efficiency: Developing what Avneesh calls a “sales and operating engine” with better profit margins built into its very design. This wasn’t about making incremental improvements but rather about fundamentally restructuring how the business created and captured value.

Strategic Vision Integration: Creating a comprehensive strategic framework that unified all aspects of business execution. This process helped bridge the gap between having ideas and successfully implementing them across a global organization.

The Results in Context

The transformation yielded significant improvements in both quantitative and qualitative aspects:

Financial Performance: Achieving better profit margins through structural improvements rather than just cost-cutting Operational Efficiency: Creating systems that scaled effectively with growth Cultural Alignment: Building a cohesive global team aligned around shared values and objectives Strategic Clarity: Developing clear pathways for executing ideas across the organization

Understanding Strategic Partnership

What makes ThinkTech’s transformation particularly instructive is how they benefited from what Avneesh describes as empathetic guidance – someone who could see the world through their eyes while bringing external expertise. This combination of understanding and expertise proved crucial for implementing meaningful change in a complex international business environment.

Coach’s Commentary

Working with ThinkTech revealed something crucial about international business transformation: the most effective changes often require both structural and cultural evolution. What makes their story particularly compelling is how they managed to improve profitability while simultaneously strengthening their organizational culture.

Their experience demonstrates that business model transformation isn’t just about changing what you do – it’s about fundamentally shifting how you create and deliver value. The evolution from marketing agency to consulting firm represents more than a repositioning; it reflects a deeper understanding of how to build sustainable profit margins into the core business model.

The international dimension of their transformation is especially noteworthy. Successfully implementing change across multiple countries requires a delicate balance of global consistency and local adaptation – a balance they achieved through careful strategic planning and cultural alignment.

Your Next Step

If you’re leading a growing organization and finding that increased revenue isn’t translating into proportional profits, or if you’re struggling to maintain cultural cohesion across multiple locations, ThinkTech’s story offers valuable insights. Perhaps you too have tried conventional solutions without achieving the desired results.

We invite you to explore how your organization might undergo a similar transformation. Through a confidential strategy session, we will:

• Examine your current business model and identify structural improvement opportunities
• Explore strategies for building better profit margins into your operations
• Discuss approaches for maintaining cultural cohesion during growth
• Determine if our approach aligns with your organizational goals

Request Your Strategy Session

“His intellect, value system, empathy, experience, skills – all of these can save you years in business and fast track your growth. I sometimes regret why I didn’t hire him or found him before. I don’t want you to feel the same.” – Avneesh Gupta