“Delivering Results, Transferring Skills and Leaving Legacies”
The bean counters DON’T make any difference; The weak link in many failed companies is NOT the finance director; simply the operation could generate more cash. Better business management prevents disaster. In most cases the FDs words betray them as much as the numbers. In the face of a disaster the FDs classic excuses. ● “I don’t do cash forecasts. I’ve never found them useful.” ● “Sure we’ve made some losses but look how much we’ve grown turnover.” ● “I don’t know whether this customer account is profitable. What I do know is that we can’t supply them enough. They love us!” ● “You just don’t understand our business. We’ve always done it this way.” ● “I don’t actually prepare the management accounts.” Don’t forget Procurement – “delivering more value at less cost”; the misconceived view of procurement is simple cost savings. In fact the benefits of effective procurement can extend beyond functional boundaries. Procurement creates the ability to create a robust business model, collaborate internally & externally enabling the organisation to be more agile to changes in the business environment. Good procurement shares several common characteristics; ● internal and external cross functional cooperation and collaboration.● Standardised sourcing processes across the business.● Supplier performance reporting ensuring compliance with service level agreements ● Automated requisition/order activity and other non value adding activities. ● Remuneration & reward linked directly to the achievement of functional objectives. Getting procurement right – a 26x return on the project; the scenario; manufacturing comprised of 3 million hours pa covering 20,000 SKUs. We were engaged by a division losing money and facing 2 choices – Closure or radical restructuring. Procurement were part of the multi functional change management team that quickly identified the direction, options, approach, deliverables & timeline requirements and completed ahead of schedule. The benefits delivered were as follows: ● £3M savings delivered. ● created and recruited the team and first multi functional Strategic Sourcing discipline in the client Group. ● assessed and introduced 37 totally new suppliers into the client inside 4 weeks. ● successfully transferred 3 million machining hours to newly selected supply base. ●created the purchasing processes and framework under which the new function operated. ●substantially improved overall service provision – right first time & on time in full. ● A return on investment of 26:1. By any “bean counting” yardstick a staggering ROI? Tom Pickering (Icebreaker Executive CEO) office@icebreakerexecutive.com T: 0207 193 5518.
