Lexar Inc – Fast growth & lean business model (FMCG EMEA retail)

Ability to integrate into the client company
Brought in as Supply Chain Director EMEA, in a business that had reached a ceiling in terms of growth and performance. He very quickly understood the entrepreneurial culture within the EMEA subsidiary business, and engaged successfully with the US parent company to effect change. He immediately got involved making a difference in the business, closing and establishing a new distribution facility to enable us to achieve our Q2 revenue targets, and established a bespoke media distribution facility in a subsidised area of N Germany to serve our European clients. He gained respect from the team by engaging and taking a lead to resolve the issues that had become the norm for many years and developed the organisation, skills and structure to take performance to the next stage.

Impact on the business / bottom line
Created a scalable business model to keep the EMEA facility lean, and outsource capability to experts. Established supply chain, vendors, vendor review processes, SOP, customer support, operations and inventory management processes to reduce lead time from 5 weeks to 4 days, with: 35% order fulfilment cost saving, 40% to 80% OTIF & 70% inbound logistics saving. This created the platform to grow the business from $250m to $500m

Overall contribution / achievement of objectives
The UK distribution facility was shut in 2 weeks, and the outsourced business model proposal was signed off with The US parent company in 3 months, and a robust low cost, lean, short lead time business model was created to enable the core team to focus on their core responsibilities: customer value and delivery with all non core activity outsourced. The $250m supply chain serving all of the complexities of EMEA Retail was run very successfully centrally in EMEA with a very lean team 8 people.

Working style
Very results/task focused, and works easily from VP level to shop floor. Develops respect and rapport with the team by getting involved and developing processes and organisation. Decisive and willing to take a lead significant change.

Leadership / people management skills
His great strength is leading people and teams, and developing customer and supplier relationships. He created the organisation structure with supporting business processes to manage the demanding business. He had to overcome a culture in the companywhere people were held accountable for their actions but had decisions made for them. Through mentoring and working closely with individuals he created a team who thought for themselves and made decisions for themselves.

Any other comments about the executive
Very driven, overcame substantial political barriers to doing what was right for the EMEA business and customers by creating the 0utsourced business model platform to deliver a substantial improvement in performance on which to grow the EMEA business