The company manufactures highly bespoke products and operates within the B2B sector.  Although the business is relatively small, customers are from the upper echelons of the market and are very demanding regarding quality and delivery.

 

As sales turnover has grown, the Directors have struggled to cope with the demands on their time and they no longer have a “hands-on” role. The team around them are very capable, but the company is still operating with processes more akin to a micro business and the requirement for change has become obvious.  Management identified several current issues and these highlighted the need for consultancy assistance:

 

• Information flow was inefficient, slow and prone to errors.

• Computer systems were no longer appropriate.

• There was no formal purchasing procedure.

• Manufacturing operations needed bringing up-to-date.

• Quality control systems were lacking.

  

To summarise, the business processes were no longer fit-for-purpose and changes were needed to support the predicted growth.  

 

The project entailed examining the key business processes and benchmarking them against industry best-practice.  Then to identify the shortfall and define a fully-costed and prioritised plan of action to address the weaknesses.  

 

This was a short project at a small company, but financial benefits in excess of £100,000 per annum were predicted, meaning a pay-back on the consultancy fees of 16:1.  Essentially, the fees were recouped in less than one month.

 

MANAGING DIRECTOR - "Thanks for pointing us in the right direction, I think that we can easily achieve the savings that you predicted and we now have a clear plan of action for making progress."