Fisher's Document Systems is a 70-year-old "start-up" that embarked on a dramatic two-year transformation. We had a good company, but not a great one. We needed to think like a start-up.

In the process, we improved our customer satisfaction rating from 50 percent to 98 percent and boosted our sales by 33 percent.

How did we do it?

We focused on four areas: People, processes, performance and products.

Our first priority was to evaluate and, in some cases, change our employee base. Jim Collins (author of "Good to Great") suggests getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. We had tough decisions to make, but they were critical to success.

When hiring new people, we looked for three attributes: customer-centric thinking, positive attitude and dedication to personal and organizational improvement.

It was then our job to cultivate an environment and culture for employees to succeed. Some of the things we now do include ongoing training, employee recognition programs, good compensation, and an open-door policy for company leaders.

We also revamped most of our business processes. Companies often have undocumented and inconsistent processes. For Fisher's, these led to inefficiency, poor communication and bad customer experiences.

To turn things around, we:

• Identified critical processes and put the customer experience at the forefront of our process redesign.
• Created simple Standard Operating Procedures and made sure they were followed.
• Treated customer issues as opportunities by identifying root causes and solving issues through process changes.
• Established internal controls to monitor the processes and flag exceptions early.
• Implemented best practices from successful companies in other markets.
• Invested in capital improvements. We built a state-of-the-art technology center where customers can mimic their imaging and work-flow environments and try our products.

Performance was the next important area. In our "old" business, performance was measured solely by sales and profits. Our "start-up" business defines performance at every level of the organization. Our performance management process now includes goal setting and regular reviews that focus on individual performance metrics, training objectives and career goals.

We also infused accountability throughout the organization. Goals are meaningless when positive and negative consequences are absent. That also meant establishing corporate benchmarks and launching initiatives to correct underperforming areas.

Finally, we shared the company's performance with the team. Motivation comes from knowing how individual performance is reflected in team performance.

Last, but not least, we needed to focus on our products. We had market-leading hardware products but needed expertise in new areas that presented growth opportunities and differentiation.

Our new areas included electronic-document management (software solutions for scanning, archiving, retrieving, and routing electronics documents) and printer-fleet management (reduction of costs associated with laser printers).

Keys to successful adoption of these new products included:

• Selecting products and services that were synergistic with our core business.
• Hiring people with significant experience in the new areas.
• Dedicating adequate resources to the new businesses.

Fisher's execution in these areas launched our business into a new realm. But it took time and required patience. Some customers didn't have the patience to wait for the reinvented Fisher's. I don't blame them.

But we did it. The first step was realizing that our "old" business needed a "start-up" mentality.

Chris Taylor is president and CEO of Fisher's Document Systems. He can be reached at christaylor@fishers-boise.com. Starting Up is a series published on Thursdays.