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Schmidt's plan for the future is to keep growing. As stated earlier, he wants the company to target more specific markets, which could lead to a change in the companies operations. It was mentioned that the media and analysts were asked to hold off on judgments for a couple years, as ISS had lost some major accounts in 1995, and had not fully recovered. From this, we see that they are obviously planning to regain their former holdings, and do not want to have it widely publicized that they currently had a lower bottom line. .
Business Factors.
While ISS began as a company that focused solely on cleaning services, it has expanded to other markets, including packages for the hospital sector, the food industry, and airports. For example, their hospital services include portering, linen distribution, catering, landscaping, park maintenance, and parking services. As mentioned earlier, Schmidt is trying to develop new products that ISS can specialize in, to gain an even larger share of the market and increase growth. .
Boasting 120,000 employees and annual revenues of $2.3 billion, ISS has grown nearly a thousand fold from where it began 33 years ago. They have been very profitable in their endeavors, partly because they are not hesitant to try new things or segregate from tradition. As stated in the case, ISS is a "combination of a hard-nosed, no-nonsense business and an Exploritorium." From what I gather, this has been very conducive to creative ideas, and makes employees feel comfortable, yet challenged. In my own work experience, these are the best types of environments.
Schmidt has set some general financial goals, which are to achieve an annual growth rate of 10-12 percent in turnover and 15-20 percent in operating profit. While this seems feasible for ISS, one of their marketing officers states that they may want to push a little less. As he noted, they have expanded by 10-15 percent for the last 30 years, and it may be in their best interest to let the companies that they have grow through their own actions, rather than making as many acquisitions.
