Actionable strategies to help mid-sized manufacturers overcome challenges, align teams and drive sustainable growth.
By Jen Fietz, CEO and president of Stoke RGA
Mid-sized manufacturers today are navigating a dynamic and challenging business climate. They face ongoing challenges, including rising operational costs, talent shortages, capacity constraints and unpredictable global activity and market shifts. Yet despite these hurdles, companies should look beyond temporary fixes and embrace innovative strategies that drive sustainable, long-term growth.
This requires a fundamental shift in thinking, aligning teams, resetting priorities, fostering innovation and scaling strategic initiatives to transform high-level goals to measurable systems that work year-over-year, even during uncertain times.
Many manufacturers have embraced the digital transformation, yet their investments often fall short of expectations. This is typically because of fragmented strategies, a lack of alignment between departments and siloed initiatives that never gain company-wide traction. These missteps can be costly, waste time, drain resources and damage team morale.
So, what is the solution? Building a cohesive and long-term growth strategy that is tied directly to the core business objectives. This means slowing down, evaluating business needs and then building a strategy around those needs instead of chasing the latest technology trends.
The key is to transition from reactive, activity-based efforts to a system-driven strategy. A successful digital transformation isn’t about implementing a single piece of software; it’s about building an integrated ecosystem that delivers measurable and repeatable results.
A strategy is only as powerful as its execution. Many manufacturers excel at defining a high-level vision but struggle to translate it into an actionable, long-term plan. As a result, progress can derail due to misaligned key performance indicators (KPIs), outdated team structures and a lack of clear accountability.
To build a framework for sustained success, manufacturers must focus on three areas: aligning metrics, restructuring teams and tracking outcomes.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure accurately. To compete effectively, manufacturers must track metrics that extend beyond traditional production outputs and lead volume. Sustainable growth, both now and in the future, depends on a deeper understanding of the entire commercial funnel. This requires focusing on four core categories:
Silos are the enemy of growth. A traditional departmentalized structure hinders collaboration and slows down decision-making. To become more agile, manufacturers should break down these barriers and create cross-functional “pod” teams organized around shared goals and KPIs.
When sales, marketing, operations or product development share accountability for revenue growth, their priorities naturally align. This structure requires clear and consistent communication methods, such as weekly standing meetings and quarterly planning sessions, to keep everyone in sync. Leadership plays a vital role in this transformation by fostering a culture of collaboration, empowering teams with autonomy and championing internal alignment as a growth driver.
Lastly, sustained growth depends on a continual feedback loop. Implement structured processes for tracking progress against your KPIs, gathering insights and executing your strategy. This disciplined approach allows you to shift with the changing market conditions, optimize underperforming initiatives and double down on what works. It transforms your strategy from a static document into a living and evolving framework for success.
Strategic pivots, when done right, can unlock significant growth opportunities and create stronger revenue streams. Here are some examples of how mid-sized manufacturers successfully overcame common challenges.
A manufacturer was struggling to accelerate growth beyond its direct sales model. The world’s largest water quality solutions company wanted to rapidly expand its footprint across 1,100 Lowe’s store locations and generate $25M in retail sales in a short time period.
By shifting its strategy to build a robust network of dealer partners, the company was able to enter new markets and scale its reach far more efficiently. With the help of a strategic growth partner, the company developed a two-phase outbound sales campaign strategy, blending strategic email marketing with prioritized outbound calling. The second phase targets top-tier prospects and transitions to one-on-one sales meetings, accelerating conversion rates.
As a result of this shift, 98 group discovery meetings were booked, and 17 of those prospects became one-on-one meetings with a 100% closure rate. Email open rates were at 19%, and outbound call response rates were at 12%, well above industry norms. This pivot from a solely internal sales focus to a channel expansion strategy not only grew the customer base but also distributed market risk and enhanced brand visibility.
In another example, a manufacturer primarily served large enterprise customers but saw an untapped opportunity with small and midsize (SMBs) businesses. They noticed many SMBs struggled to find high-quality pouch printing in smaller quantities with fast delivery times at a reasonable price. This gap created an opportunity to serve growing businesses in craft coffee, specialty foods and wellness products.
The company launched a new digital pouch printing offering, creating an entirely new revenue stream tailored to the SMB market. This strategic expansion allowed them to leverage their existing production capabilities while capturing a previously ignored customer segment, reducing their reliance on a few large accounts.
In just one year, this manufacturer generated 500 new leads, with high-performing search terms like “custom printed food pouches” driving qualified traffic and conversions. Additionally, the company diversified its revenue streams through an agile and fast-scaling business model.
In addition to these examples, many manufacturers are finding growth by transitioning from product-only models to integrated service-based offerings. “Servitization” involves adding services like preventative maintenance contracts, training or outcome-based pricing to a physical product. This shift repositions the value proposition from focusing on product features to emphasizing the business outcomes delivered. While it requires a strategic alignment of marketing, sales and operations, servitization creates high-margin, recurring revenue and deepens customer relationships, building a powerful competitive advantage.
The path to sustained growth for mid-sized manufacturers lies in turning a high-level vision into actionable strategies. This involves aligning KPIs with revenue goals, restructuring teams to foster collaboration and rigorously tracking outcomes. When you make the shift from reactive to proactive, comprehensive growth strategies, you set your business up for success for years to come.
About the Author:
Jen Fietz is the CEO of Stoke RGA, a Wisconsin-based revenue growth accelerator focused on helping manufacturers drive double-digit, scalable revenue growth. Raised in a manufacturing family and having worked directly on the plant floor herself, Fietz understands firsthand the operations, supply chain and workforce challenges facing today’s manufacturers. She uses that expertise to assist manufacturers to align strategy, sales, marketing and operations and execute with precision to get scalable, sustainable results. Learn more about Stoke RGA at stokerga.com or connect with Jen on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferfietz.
Other articles Jen Fietz is featured in:
Why Tech Alone Can’t Solve Revenue Growth Challenges
Understanding the Growth Insanity Cycle
Lessons for 2026: The role of leadership in driving manufacturing growth
Industry in Transition: The Forces Reshaping Manufacturing
As manufacturers offer more customization than ever before, managing product complexity has become a critical challenge. Tune in with Dan Joe Barry, Vice President of Product Marketing at Configit, who explores how companies are tackling the growing number of product configurations across engineering, sales, manufacturing, and service. He explains how Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) helps organizations maintain a single source of truth for configuration data. The result: fewer errors, faster quoting, and the ability to deliver customized products at scale.
Get In Touch
Google news and SEO compliant, Industry Today’s state-of-the-art digital media platform offers bespoke media campaigns that target key decision makers and buyers to achieve your marketing and promotional goals.
Contribute
Showcase your brand and promote your business to our highly targeted audience. We offer detailed Google Analytics with measurable ROI to assure success. Submit your content for review by our Editorial team who will contact you to discuss the project further.
About Us
Reach Your Targeted Audience and Grow Your Business. Learn more About Industry Today.
Contact Us
© 2026 Industry today. All Rights reserved.
