Operating in an increasingly complex economic environment, these executives are battered by soaring costs, shrinking profit margins, human resource nightmares and brutal competitive pressures. It isn’t hard to see why they have a sense that their companies are always on the edge – that success is a slippery slope.

Facing the twin barrels of a burgeoning information explosion and a wildfire revolution in technology, it also isn't hard to see why these overwhelmed executives feel like they're up against a wall with a blindfold.

Yet thousands of executives across the country are not only dodging all the bullets; they've gone on the offensive so that their companies can survive, grow and prosper. They've done it by joining Renaissance Executive Forums.

Steve Doody, owner of Component Sources International in Marlborough, Massachusetts, is one such forward-thinking business leader who recognized this powerful resource that he could use to build the competitive edge his company would need to survive and thrive well into the future.

Steve reported that his implementation of Activity Based Costing (ABC), a process he learned about in his Boston Forum, helped him improve his profits 34% in the first year. "I learned about ABC in our Forum late in 1997. We had a series of programs on measuring corporate performance. The videotapes and the supporting articles really caught my attention. I had been increasing my revenues, but my profits were declining and I knew I needed to take action.”

This achievement is all the more impressive when you learn that the sales from his traditional business declined almost 20% in the same period. He says, “I brought my staff in to the office one weekend and we followed the process outlined in the Activity Based Costing materials. We quickly identified buckets of opportunity to reduce costs when we did the cross-functional process analysis. We also identified new revenue sources. We were providing services to our customers for which we were not being paid. We had gradually slipped into doing some things that were not part of the original agreements."

The team was excited by the potential to improve the overall performance of the company, and they built the forecasted improvements into the budget for 1998. The forecast was for a ten-point improvement in profits before tax (PBT). Steve also reorganized the company to support the new way of looking at results. That is, he implemented Activity Based Management (ABM) which he had also learned about in his Forum. For example, he created a customer service department separate from his sales department.

As the year progressed, Steve saw his primary source of revenues decline as many of his customers' customers caught the "Asian Flu." Because he now had such a good handle on his costs, Steve was able to fine tune the process and reduce costs as revenues declined. The cost adjustments could not compensate for all of the lost revenue, and he was not able to achieve his PBT target (mostly due to a disastrous December); but he did increase PBT 7 points or 34% over 1997.

Steve gives his peers in his Forum credit for much of the improvement he achieved in his operating results. He also gives them credit for helping him to reduce his level of stress and the stress on his staff. He says, "The benefits of the Forum range from learning the latest business processes and technologies to solving problems and reducing stress by sharing problems with peers who have been there. I leave each meeting a little wiser and healthier."