Customer Success Stories
Industry
Profile:
High volume,
low to medium product variety
Low profit margins
Business forecast driven, forecast accuracy crucial
High volume, high speed manufacturing
Multiple production-to-distribution points
Source-to-sink - many-to-many relationships
Short shelf life but long brand life
Consumer loyalty--major issue
Private store brands via relabeling
Collaborative forecasting
Efficient Customer Response crucial
Transportation/distribution costs --bulk of costs |
What
Challenges the Company Faced:
- Bullwhipped Supply Chain because
of chronically inaccurate demand forecasts
- Utter lack of Supply-Chain culture
- Fractious relationship between manufacturing
and marketing
- Perpetual late shipments
- Unpredictable transportation costs
- Production cannibalization because
of unplanned market launches
- Absence of integrated ERP System
and Supply Chain software
- Too many islands of data that led
to delayed decision-making
- No clear metrics to connect and create
common behavior
- Poor executive understanding of Supply
Chain criticality
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What
We Accomplished For Them:
- A clear end-to-end analysis of the company’s
value chain highlighting break points,
reasons for rupture and recommendations
for swift improvement.
- Supply-Chain boot camps for all manufacturing,
sales, marketing, purchasing, distribution and
transportation personnel.
- A clear set of information requirements, department
by department, and across departments that led
to holistic decision-making templates for the
company.
- A common set of performance goals that smashed
the silo culture and forced departments
to work together.
- Executive boot camps for senior management on
Supply Chains and business strategy to enroll
their sponsorship.
- Education for IT personnel to enforce
alignment thinking and decision support.
As a result of our work this company built
one of the most agile supply chains in its industry,
enabling it to launch new products and expand into
newer markets.
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2.
Telecommunications: Supply Chain, Innovation, and Business Growth Strategy |
Industry
Profile:
- Unique design and solution needs
for each customer
- Configure-to-order business
- High Engineering sophistication
- Hardware, software, and network part
of a full solution
- Assembly at multiple points in the
delivery chain
- Project driven and site installation
based
- Revenues based on project completion
and progress billing
- Future revenues based ongoing maintenance, service, and
upgrades
- Integration into Enterprise Planning
software.
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What
Challenges the Company Faced:
- Three straight years of red ink
- A highly inefficient supply chain
with late installations and chronic cost overruns
- Proliferation of products and services,
many without a cogent market charter
- Delayed time to market on new product
launches
- End of year write- offs and unnecessary
obsolescence
- Fragmented company culture and depleted
morale
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What
We Accomplished For Them:
- A clear end-to-end analysis
of root causes and reasons for functional inefficiencies.
- A comprehensive template for driving Supply-Chain
Excellence with full participation
of all constituents, including suppliers.
- Very
clear procurement policies to dramatically minimize
overstocking, write-offs and obsolescence.
- Streamlining of order-to-cash process resulting
in accelerated revenue recognition and working
capital inflow.
- Evaluation and Rationalization of Product Portfolios and Pricing Combinations
- Elimination of Feature-Function Conflicts and Interferences
- Creation of Product-Market Evolution Maps and Industry Messages
- Boot camps for product development, marketing,
sales to streamline product portfolio and marketing
tactics.
- Company-wide training in Supply-Chain Excellence to break
the silo culture and the four-wall mentality.
As a result of our work this company was profitable
for eight straight quarters in a row.
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3.
Financial Services: Business -Technology - Process Alignment
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Industry
Profile:
Large number of service offerings
Each customer asset protection profile
unique
Claims, complaints, and credit memos
integral to the business
Endless variations of baseline packages
Highly clerical and detail oriented
Accumulative, and transaction driven
Islands of transaction data, often
in multiple databases
Traceability and trackability-- endemic
issue
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What
Challenges the Company Faced:
- Poor customer service levels causing customer erosion
and desertion
- The longest time-to-serve in the industry
- Dispersed island of automation, scattered data and
poor lack of visibility
- Absence of hierarchy, categorization and rationalization
of customers, leading to inefficient sales efforts
- Internal custom software development hampered by
lack of requirements and a uniform umbrella that stood
for customer service
- Lack of customer service training
- Inadequate process standardization
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What
We Accomplished For Them:
- An end-to-end deconstruction of their services
value chain highlighting black holes, broken
links and business losses.
- A complete analysis of their customer
base documenting information flows, processing
cycle times and specific service enhancements.
- A thorough rationalization of their service
offerings, market categories, customers and competitive
value for each market segment. This led to eliminating
unprofitable customers and focusing efforts
on profitable customers.
- Process remapping to eliminate duplication,
double entry and data discontinuity.
Our work improved productivity by more than
40%.
- Trained all customer service reps in providing excellent customer service.
- Dramatically reduced time-to-resolution on all customer service calls.
As
a result of our work this insurance firm continues
to have one of the best call center and new customer
enrollment programs.
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4. Industrial Goods:
Revenue Growth, Customer Acquisition, and Vertical Industry Solutions
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Industry
Profile:
Low cost, high volume consumable industry
Most sales channels distributor driven with minimal loyalties
Most differentiation based on price and product availability
Dispersed buying at the end customer level
Industry mired in traditional selling versus customer value selling
End customer feedback often unavailable or untracked for the original manufacturer
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What
Challenges the Company Faced:
- Declining growth amid price wars in most markets
- Tangential competition from non-industry players
- Too many product offerings; several without any market or growth charter
- Distribution channels at loggerheads with the company due commission splits
- Sales force mostly entrenched in a transactional selling culture
- Marketing function dissonant with the sensitivities of the market place
- Lack of a cohesive customer acquisition and sales training program
- Lack of timely information on end customers
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What
We Accomplished For Them:
- Created a business case for a direct selling model to wean the company from an entrenched distributor driven sales channel. This lead to the company creating a direct sales force for it's industrial products.
- Created a connective atmosphere of value based selling that had at it's core the customers' supply chain. Our approach established a clear framework for aligning products to markets.
- Designed and delivered a soup-to-nuts customer acquisition and sales training program for all field sales representatives.
- Established industry specific solution templates to drive vertical industry focus.
- Created comprehensive, theme-driven marketing messages to replace prior feature-filled communication.
- Rationalized product portfolio and created solution bundles that aligned themselves to key customer initiatives driving a tangible ROI.
As
a result of our work this company went through a structural transformation. It reorganized an entire division, and in doing so improved it's industry and customer focus, marketing messaging, and sales methodology. Furthermore, based on our reccomendation, it created a new sales channel via a direct sales force to further penetrate the market.
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To learn how we can help you visit our Services page.
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