CLIENTS
Mechanic Wants to Build Business for Retirement
Heavy Diesel Mechanic Company
Challenge: No cash flow, no monthly financial performance reporting, and no operational metrics.
Tackling the uncertain: Company losing money and doesn't know how to make profit like pre-pandemic.
Plan building: Performed diagnostic of the company and identified many negative issues to develop strategies, tasks, and hold team members accountable for improvement. Created strategy, structure, financials and technology implementation to provide monthly operational metrics, financial reporting, and help with timely customer collections. Implemented industry specific Fullbay heavy duty diesel software, migrated from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online Plus, developed company employee handbook with job descriptions, and developed hiring strategies.
Performance management: Implemented the Business Success Program and developed a business vision and 5 year strategic business plan.
Outcomes: Created both operational and financial key performance indicators to help drive strategy, improve gross margin, and net income. Introduce upselling policy and technician incentive plan to award directly for upsells. Performed labor burden analysis, which resulted in a 20% price increase and increasing net income by $400k. Introduce an accurate monthly financials and inventory analysis to ensure parts, material, and labor are driving revenue increases. Created strategy to hire sales person to increase customer base. Strategized marketing plan to create website with SEO to bring customers to the company. Created 5-year Milestone to have the capability to measure progress toward the 5-year business vision of retirement. Provided monthly implementation task and meetings to ensure progress made toward reducing costs, increasing revenue, and putting the client on the correct path for business growth and success.
Company Headed Towards Insolvency
Boat Sail Company
Challenge: Company's profit in steady decline for a few years until at the point of insolvency.
Tackling the uncertain: Owner in a state of desperation and does not know what to do to change the company's direction.
Plan building: Performed diagnostic of the company and identified many negative issues; such as, family members gave themselves substantial pay increase without any financial forecasting being done to
ascertain whether this could be afforded, products being manufactured were being quoted based on a competitor's price list from 2002/2003. There was no systematic way to actually produce a quote and the wastage that was being cut off whole rolls of fabric, was not charged to the job. There were no financial controls at all and no monthly reports being produced. Owner had a limited understanding of the financial requirements of running a business. There was no marketing plan to develop more business and the business just waited for customers to come in the door. There was a drop of 30% in sales.
Performance management: Implemented the Business Success Program and developed a business vision and 5 year strategic business plan.
Outcomes: Establish the exact financial position of the business and reduce the income of the family members to what it was previously. Introduce a comprehensive product costing and quoting process to ensure every job made a profit, which increased gross profit by 24%. Introduce an accurate monthly financial and KPI reporting system. Develop a total marketing plan to gain more customers and re-branded the business and products as the brand looked tired and out of date. Developed budgets and cash flow forecasts for presentation to the owner's bank. Negotiated with all suppliers to requote, resulting in a saving of 9%. The recovery took 12 months for the business to make the turn-around and then salaries were restored. The owner now understood the value of
accurate timely financial reporting and learned how to make products cheaper and sell them for more than they had previously. The stress and pressure was drastically reduced and the owner actually enjoyed going to work again.
Unprepared for Growth in a Second Store
Bakery
Challenge: Company did not use monthly financial reports to measure each store's performance as well as, inadequate processes and systems in place to manage quality and profitability and faced bankruptcy.
Tackling the uncertain: Owner did not have a strategic business plan in place to properly manage the growth or to correctly cost products to make a product.
Plan building: Plan to restructure administration and implement systems to eliminate paper processes.
Performance management: Worked with owner to immediately manage cash flow and proper costing of product to minimize profit leakage.
Outcomes: Immediate upgrade of the handling and control of cash within the business. Immediate inventory of stock and establishment of the exact financial position of the business. Worked with owner's financial institution and meet with the manager to outline the Business Success Program and the plan to improve the business. Sold cars to release cash into the business. Meetings with major creditors to enlist support and to outline future plans of the business. Once the business was stable the Business Success Program commenced for long-term growth and improvement.
Struggling to Make Payroll and Using Paper Processes
Non-Profit Agency
Challenge: Company revenue, payroll, timekeeping, expense reimbursement, and vendor payments were all performed using paper processes. Also, struggling to make payroll and borrowing against line of credit.
Tackling the uncertain: Leadership unaware of the depth of the challenges and the need for change.
Plan building: Plan to restructure administration and implement systems to eliminate paper processes.
Performance management: Worked with leadership to transform the administration and convert the company from paper-based to software based technology step-by-step but quickly.
Outcomes: Accounting, HR, timekeeping, payroll, revenue recognition all automated within 3-6 months. Eliminated the need to pull on the line of credit for paying payroll and paid off existing LOC. Developed a robust in-house IT department and moved all paper process to "cloud based" 3rd party vendors to increase efficiency and effectiveness while co-sharing technology risks with 3rd parties.
No Financials and Accountability by Managers
Construction Company
Challenge: Company did not have profit & loss (P&L) statements and performance management metrics to hold managers and staff accountable and responsible for workload.
Tackling the uncertain: Management and staffs' willingness to change and take responsibility for work.
Plan building: Create profit & loss statements for the different departments. Create a performance management process.
Performance management: Worked with owner and management to review P&Ls monthly and what to look for and how to explain the changes from month-to-month. In addition, implemented a performance management process for all managers and staff.
Outcomes: Management reviews monthly P&L and explain variances. For accountability: Clearly identify each job’s purpose as well as the duties associated with it; Determined goals and how to measure outcomes; Ranked job priority; Characterized the standard of performance for critical aspects of the position; Discussed employee performance and provided feedback, which was done every six months. Kept track of performance records.
Slow Process it Took to Reconcile Investments and Cash
Museum
Challenge: Reducing the time it took to reconcile and record investments, and improve the accuracy and timeliness of bank reconciliations.
Tackling the uncertain: Worked with accounting and investment team to determine the scope of the issues.
Plan building: Determined cash and investment policies and tactics. Forecasting and review processes for both cash and investments.
Performance management: Managed the cash cycle through active management of accounts payable, inventory, and accounts receivable. Short-term and long-term efforts to understand the current cash position, anticipate cash requirements, prioritize uses of cash, identify variances, and reinforce a culture of prudent cash management within the organization. Automated the recording of investments to increase efficiency and reduce errors.
Outcomes: Increased the accuracy of cash flow and reduced the time to reconciling, providing quicker insight into cash flow. Reduced the time to reconcile and record investments by five days, freeing up staff time to work on other issues.
Vague Procedures with the Purchase to Pay Pipeline and AP Payments
Global Spirit & Wine Manufacturer
Challenge: Growing purchasing pipeline and numerous vendors, as well as, enhancing the SAP ERP system and the Concur accounts payable/expense reimbursement system.
Tackling the uncertain: Developed project team, identified roles and held weekly meetings to gain understanding of the challenge.
Plan building: Forecasted weekly and monthly goals for process, system and communication improvements. Benchmarked progress and compared weekly results against goals and previous week. Identified gaps and constraints and partnered to design best course of action to resolve.
Performance management: Implemented enhancements to SAP and Concur systems, tested enhancements and documented work flows and operating procedures. Performed data analysis to determine level of improvement and efficiencies gained.
Outcomes: Increased the SAP data processing across the organization, reducing costs and increasing profit. Improved the use of Concur, reducing the time delays, duplication of transactions, data input errors and incorrect posting of vendor bills. Client experienced strong growth in profits.
Struggles with Inventory Control, Throughput and Material Movement
International Elevator Manufacturer
Challenge: Unsure of inventory value, how much inventory on-hand and struggles with tracking material movement, both physically and in the system.
Tackling the uncertain: Held regular meetings with client staff, flow-charted the inventory process in the system and the material movement's physical and system processes. Listened closely to the client to ensure "as is" processes were correctly documented.
Plan building: Involved client team in defining the "should be" inventory control process and identified gaps. The same approach was used for the material movement team. Identified root causes for errors and omissions and made changes in the process and documented the changes.
Performance management: Tracked the improvements with data analytics, purchase volume, carry costs, stock-outs and financial benefits.
Outcomes: Reduced inventory holding costs, carrying and insurance costs, increasing the business value of the client. Increased the tracking of material movement in the system, providing accurate material visibility for sales people and purchasers. Increased the physical tracking of material movement, reducing the duplication of purchases, customer delays due to misplaced inventory and obsolescence. These changes increased the business' wealth significantly, resulting in larger bonuses for the client's staff and the results and documentation were implemented across North America.
