Situation: A company that manufactures and sells components to a large corporation has a dilemma. This customer is throwing more business their way, under favorable terms. At the same time, the company wants to diversify to reduce exposure to a single large client. The challenge is that alternate opportunities are not as profitable as those from this customer. As the CEO puts it, should they use limited resources to chase copper when gold is readily available? Do you diversify or optimize current opportunities?

Advice from the CEOs:

• It is always dangerous to have all your eggs in one basket. Dedicate resources to develop alternative business opportunities, knowing that at first the new opportunities will not be as appealing as current opportunities with this large client.
  • Think back – has business from the large customer always been this profitable? In developing new business opportunities, one often must pay dues to develop opportunities for future profits.
  • Invest in business development to find new business opportunities outside of this large customer. Do this sooner rather than later. One never knows when a large customer will change strategic direction.
• What are the company’s options and choices?
  • Stay the current course and accept the risks of this strategy or diversify.
  • Put some resources into studying options to diversify. If there is no gold out there, then maximize the cash from the current situation and invest it in something that will provide a satisfactory long-term return. If the large customer closes the door, then just shut down.
• How could the company diversify? Geographically? Additional products to other customers? Put together a diversification plan and test it for feasibility.
• Make sure that company’s and owner’s priorities are clear and not in conflict with each other.
  • What is the optimal size of the company?
  • How many customers are needed to support optimal company size and how much diversification is required for this?
  • What is the owner’s exit strategy and timeline?
  • If the objective is to stay small and exit in one or two years, why chase diversification? Think about what would be appealing to a potential acquirer. Perhaps it is just access to this large customer.

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