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However, the story allows for many parallels to your own business, showing
both the particular opportunities and the challenges, and revealing the need
for clarification in the context of using Cloud services.
1.2.1
Clever Inc. in times of crisis
Max Clever was on his way home. He had just left the second strategic
meeting with the most important employees in his business, and relief was
written all over his face. The initial meeting a month ago was still an
unpleasant memory. Everything had gotten of control, and he had left the
long meeting feeling demotivated and full of disappointment
But let's get back to the beginning: Max had become the Managing Director
of Clever Inc. a year ago, after his father had gone into retirement due to ill‐
health. Ever since, he had been the boss of the family‐owned, mid‐sized
company that specialised in building custom machines for manufacturing
small pieces modular and non‐modular furniture. He considered the
responsibility that he had taken on to be more of a challenge and an
opportunity rather than a burden. After his father's retirement, he had faced
and mastered many challenges.
His father had made the company what it was today. As a mechanical
engineer, he had taken over his grandfather's carpentry business in the mid‐
70
s and developed special machines to facilitate the complex process of
building individual pieces of furniture. Thus, in the course of time, the small,
regional carpentry business had grown into a leading international
manufacturer of custom machines for the furniture industry, Clever Inc.
When he called in an electronics expert in the late 80s to equip the
machines with electronic control units, orders started to boom, taking
Clever Inc.to the top of the league and securing double‐figure turnover
growth over the years.
Today, the company can count on the leading brand‐name furniture
manufacturers as its customers. The high level of precision with which the
furniture elements can be produced in large volumes and ready for
assembly have made Clever Inc.the market leader in its special niche.
Max Clever, now 37 years old, had taken over the company and he was
usually somebody who did justice to his name. But he had discovered that
the company was in far greater difficulty than he had already realised. In the
aftermath of the credit‐crunch, turnover had slumped dramatically,
