Client Stories
Every business owner has their own objectives and motivations for why they do what they do.
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with results that demonstrate what partnerships can achieve…
We’ve worked with hundreds of businesses over 18 years. Rather than having a page of comments from clients, (our team are always humbled to receive testimonials), it may be easier to read a few case-studies from different industries:
Trade Services Client
After our initial analysis, we established our client was having time blow outs...
This wasn’t a new problem for the client, but they didn’t realise the extent of how it was damaging their profitability. We did a back-costing on small, medium and large sized jobs. The time blow-outs on a third of the jobs were due to un-foreseen drainage issues (business was an earthmoving contractor). We added a clause in the quote for unforeseen variations where “pre-existing conditions that cannot be identified at the time of quote may require additional contractors and/or work to rectify”. We also played to their focus on quality by having the smoothest re-instate (installing a blade on all diggers), used hard fill when backfilling trenches and double-sowed the topsoil with grass. Their clients were blown away and we added $180K in annual profits from actively managing variations, job quality and blow-outs.
Retail/Wholesale Client
The change to inventory control resulted in an additional $80K of free cash flow where we used part of it to invest in a refurbishment and larger premises.
Our analysis showed up our client’s inventory had blown out whereby they were carrying 7 months of stock. Once we knew how over-stocked they were, we changed the purchasing policy away from bulk buys because their profit was all tied up in the last 50% of the stock that wasn’t selling through. We then started tracking average spend per customer and found the departments that made the most money. We then stocked that department with higher margin items with more premium lines and ended up adding $300K to the bottom line.
Professional Services Client
What was surprising to the client was the mid-sized accounts were highly profitable and the large accounts were all at break-even...
We listed out all their accounts and divided the number of hours into the total revenue for the account. This produced an “hourly rate”. What was surprising to the client was the mid-sized accounts were highly profitable and the large accounts were all at break-even (due to write-downs, miss quotes and unfavourable trading terms). We re-quoted the large-size account at pricing review, lost three accounts and retained the rest. This alone doubled their annual profit. We also tracked work in progress and its effect on cash flow that led to a changing in trading terms. The advertising budget was non-existent but thanks to more cash in the bank from WIP, we were able to invest in targeting more of the mid-sized accounts that were most profitable.
Manufacturing Client
From analysis using our software we established they were having an issue with wastage as well as with urgent jobs...
That was causing time blow-outs on their routine jobs (they were an Industrial Painter with a large workshop). We recorded labour and materials for one month on every job.We then ranked each job with highest profit contribution at the top of the list right down to lowest.We added a column on the spreadsheet for “cumulative frequency” meaning we could say “15 jobs (out of 50) gave us 80% of our profit and used 50% of our labour”This told us what type of jobs we wanted more of and which ones were burning labour and materials relative to their profit contribution.We re-priced the urgent jobs and lost many as a result (a good thing).We then significantly upgraded the customer’s delivery experience of their steelwork (even using bubble wrap in some situations!) to ensure no scratches or paint chips. Their clients loved the care-factor whereby we started winning quotes by not being the cheapest.We grew profits up 80% in just 6 months and the business went from strength to strength.