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The following are examples of results that we achieved with a few of our clients. While we developed and facilitated the process, these results were designed and generated by the employees of their respective organizations; therefore the commitment was very high, the gains were maintained, and the satisfaction levels grew significantly.
Fulfillment center
The client serves nearly 200 associations and publishers, whose industries have both been hit by the economic downturn. Membership retention has become a critical issue for the both industries resulting in a rigorous service standard … zero tolerance for losing clients to poor customer service.
A RAC Affiliate was engaged to design, implement, and track a customer loyalty process focused on three measurable goals: no client losses from poor customer service, one to two new sales opportunities within each existing account, and reduced operating expenses by 10%. Staff worked in cross-discipline teams to share progress, review objectives, and establish new goals around strengthening external and internal client relationships.
- No significant client has left as a result of poor customer service.
- Process improvements resulting from weekly team discussions resulted in immediate savings in five figures with projected annual savings for the New Year well into six figures.
- Voluntary turnover has decreased 65% over the previous year.
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Family owned, niche construction firm, $3 million in sales
The construction firm was founded in the 1950’s and the owner is passing the business down to his son. The business is currently stuck in a rut and is being operated with a 1950’s mentality. There is no structure, strategy, process, or direction for growth. They also lack the marketing expertise that will allow them to expand into newer markets. Management’s objective is to create a new road map for the company and a strategy that will ensure this small organization becomes recognized as a national player in the field. The management team specifically wants to narrow market focus and expand market share while increasing revenue from 3 million to 10 million in five years. As they create this new strategy, they want to develop a strong company culture with non-negotiable values.
A six month customized strategic planning process with a strong dose of leadership was facilitated with the management team including the founder and his son. During the first engagement a detailed strategic as well as a marketing plan were developed.
The first engagement led to a second six month engagement where the focus was on improving the client’s marketing and sales efforts. A customized sales process was developed for this phase.
- Developed a crystal clear vision and strategy with specific mapping of action steps over a two year period.
- Doubled revenue in the first 18 months to $6 million.
- Narrowed market focus to niche markets and expanded market share by 25%.
- Completely repositioned, renamed, and rebranded the company and launched a national marketing campaign.
- Company moved to a larger office space.
- Realignment of staff.
- Enhanced communication.
- Developed an in-house sales support and tracking process. Within the first 6 months increased their sales presentation and calls by at least 20%.
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Family owned, product manufacturer with global distribution, $100 million in revenue
The client is experiencing explosive growth worldwide and they are not prepared for it. The current infrastructure is weak with little to no process or structure. There is limited leadership experience at the supervisory and management levels. Employees are experiencing a lot of conflict and disconnects, old-timers stuck in the old culture and new hires are ready to be part of something big.
The RAC Affiliate created and facilitated a highly customized group leadership process for both the managers and supervisors to prepare them to be future leaders within the organization while igniting passion and motivation among the ranks. Management also invested in individual coaching for all participants and 50% of the participants decided to work with their coach long term.
- 75% expected growth in revenue.
- 25% increase in product manufacturing.
- Increased profit margins.
- Silos have crumbled and cross-departmental communication is now the norm.
- Management is talking to engineering and to customers when developing new product which allows them to get product out quicker with less re-work.
- Trust is growing among individuals, teams, and departments opening up more communication and camaraderie.
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Stock Broker
This individual by his own admission was disorganized, took on too much work outside of his comfort zone, lost opportunities due to the mountains of paperwork he amassed, never delegated, had a deteriorating relationship with his assistant, and was in the bottom 25 of the national ranking of sales results for his organization. His objective was to achieve a professional level of organization and be in the top five ranking of sales results.
A combination approach to personal leadership, sales improvement, personal strategic planning, and time management was facilitated via a one-on-one coaching process.
- He is now more organized.
- Has an improved relationship with his assistant through better communication.
- He is confident in his delegation skills.
- Has more time to focus on big-ticket clients.
- He was recognized as the #4 producer in his office and quickly achieved recognition as the #2 producer.
- He is also in the top 10 national ranking in sales for his entire organization.
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Niche division of an international freight/trucking company, $275 million in revenue, publicly held.
CEO has identified three senior level managers for future executive leadership positions and made the commitment to provide the resources necessary to help them acquire the skills to advance.
Using appropriate diagnostics, a customized one-on-one coaching process was created for each of the three individuals directly addressing their strengths and needed areas of improvement. Subject areas included concepts of leadership, executive leadership, strategic planning, and business development.
- Each of the individuals made tremendous strides in both personal and professional development.
- Each has been promoted into an executive leadership position within the company
- Recovered all of their losses from economic downturn and are on track to meet financial goals.
- Employee specifics,
- Employee #1 is running an entire business unit within division. CEO is blown away at how she has been able to double revenue within 8 months.
- Employee #2 wrote her own personal and professional strategic plan and proposed to the CEO the role she wanted to play and shared the ROI. Doubled revenue and had a huge impact on customer retention and growth.
- Employee #3 was a 25-year employee feeling stuck in his position. The process got him unstuck, and he now runs largest department within division.
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Home Health Care and Medical Supplies Provider in business since 1997, 200 employees servicing clients in two states.
The owner wanted to develop an executive team to lead collaboratively in order to strategically grow the business, which would enable the owner to transition into a less active leadership role and into more of an advisor/mentor role. During the course of the program, state regulators unexpectedly reduced their Medicaid reimbursement by 10%. This change meant that the company profits and margins were immediately reduced by 10%. As a result of this change, the company leaders needed to quickly develop new growth strategies while engaging their people in the processes to make it happen.
The Affiliate worked with the four-person executive team to develop the necessary leadership skills to set the new strategic goal, the action plan to accomplish it, and to lead execution of the plan to grow their third largest market segment by 50%. One member of the executive team took overall accountability for the goal and each of the other team members took primary ownership of one or more of the key deliverables. Individual coaching helped the leaders fine tune their action plans and develop appropriate behavior changes, while the group sessions helped them stay aligned.
- Within one month, the client met the goal of growing the third largest customer segment by 50%. Since the goal was achieved so quickly, they universally agreed to double the goal to increase 100% by year-end.
- The owner has developed a new growth strategy in medical supply sales and has engaged the affiliate to develop 17 additional team members to increase customer loyalty, referrals, and pull-through medical supply sales.
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$25 million in sales, 150 non-union employees
Client’s customer contacted client organization and offered to double the units they purchased from 50,000 to 100,000 units per year. The customer was currently purchasing one half of their inventory from the client and one half of their inventory from a competitor. However, the customer found the client’s unit quality to be far better. In order to make the commitment to the customer, the client needed to reduce their internal costs by 30% to stay whole therefore reviewing and revamping their existing processes became a priority.
After assessing the situation, a RAC Affiliate facilitated a four-day Cycle Time Reduction process with a nine-person team from the organization. The team included engineers, operators, finishers, and the plant manager. The team’s experience ranged from 20 years to one month. Through this cycle time reduction process the team identified a duplicate process of passavating the units as well as anodizing the units. The team discovered that the anodizing process also included the passavating process. They learned that the duplicated process cost the organization one dollar per unit instantly saving the organization $50,000.00. The team further investigated to see if this duplicated process could be found on any other product the organization produced. The team quickly learned they could eliminate this duplicated process on a number of products saving the organization $950,000.00 per year.
In addition to the $950,000.00 annual savings, the organization also experienced the following results:
- 32% cost reduction.
- Reduced lead times by 82%.
- Reduced the number of steps an operator takes from 982 to 353.
- Reduced the number of operations from 24 to 15.
- Increased capacity 33%.
- Gained eleven days in lead time.
- Cash savings was $396,000.00
A total full burden cost savings over $1 million dollars.
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Food Processing Equipment Manufacturer
Upcoming leadership of this family-owned organization was very young and in need of development. The owner wanted his sons to be ready to accept leadership responsibility sooner rather than later and help get the company out of its current ten million dollar rut.
The owner and five upcoming leaders including his sons participated in a leadership development process combined with a strategic planning process. The process focused on defining where the company was headed, creating a seamless succession plan, and the specific objectives to make the new plan a reality. Based on the success of the initial project, the owner invested in 30 additional employees. Goal setting is used for all key corporate initiatives which are reviewed as a team monthly.
- Leadership positions have been filled with candidates who are committed to the success of the organization and understand the plan.
- There is a solid succession plan in place.
- The company has achieved $16 million in revenue and quickly on the way to $17 million.
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Orthopedic medical device manufacturer
The primary differentiator in this company’s market is speed. Since the industry is highly regulated and controlled, quality and manufacturing systems are very much the same in all companies. Therefore, speed to market is essential in order to achieve supremacy in this highly competitive environment. For a small (less than $10 million) provider, the sooner they can get their product to the distributor, the better the chances of getting the order. Our client was losing out to competition because they were continuously losing the battle of speed to market. The owner of the company stated that he could double his sales if he could cut his lead-time in half. They were currently quoting 7-8 week lead times for new products. They were taking 2-3 weeks to enter an order and get it to final scheduling to the shop floor, which was caused by a cumbersome engineering review process.
It was learned that not every operation in the plant was being scheduled, which caused some orders to languish for days or even weeks. In addition, the inspection process required by law added between one and three weeks to the time, depending on the workflow. A customized cycle time reduction process was implemented to reduce the lead time.
- The weekly new-order engineering meeting went to a daily 15-minute new order engineering review, which immediately cut a week from the overall time.
- The configuration of the set up was improved by scheduling each operation daily, which cut another one to two weeks from the overall time to ship.
- QC stations were moved and inspection was made a part of the process rather than an interruption of it, which cut out another one day to two weeks from the overall time.
- After conducting a waste walk, they eliminated all WIP stands between operations, and improved the flow between the operations. This had the added benefit of taking out over $100K in WIP, thereby improving margins considerably.
- The client cut their lead-time to 4 weeks, and orders doubled.
- Company grew from 5 million annually to over 7 million.
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Stone Fabrication
The client was operating in the red due to stagnant growth even though their market held significant potential. The inexperience of a young management team was identified as a contributing factor. In addition, the owner was admittedly reluctant to delegate projects and authority to the inexperienced team which caused angry customers, bottlenecks, and missed opportunities. The owner made the decision to invest in their untapped potential to grow their team therefore growing the company.
An executive leadership development process was designed and implemented for the management team and the owner.
- Customer Satisfaction surveys were installed and ratings averaged 9+ on a 10 point scale within a few short months.
- More money was made in one month than in the previous 18 months combined.
- In the four subsequent years, the company has grown nearly 400%. They were a $1.2 million dollar company losing money when the process began.
- They are now growing, highly profitable $5 million company setting their sights on becoming a $10 million company.
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Vegetable Oil Manufacturer
This company was experiencing an increase in customer complaints which were handled internally by a total of seven different departments. Because of department bottlenecks, handling a customer complaint took 82 steps. This cumbersome process was causing the client to lose money. As an example, they could identify one customer that they lost because of complaints that cost the company $15,000.00 in lost revenues. In addition, this client had no formal inventory control process, making it difficult to meet customer needs since they were not measuring real time inventory control numbers. They wanted to attract larger clients. Because they could not cite solid statistics on turnaround time and response time, larger clients walked away.
Two customized cycle time reduction processes were facilitated with two teams. One focused on improving the customer complaints process and the other focused on inventory control. The teams working on these projects were cross functional and cross departmental.
- The streamlined resolution process for complaints was reduced 50% to 40 steps.
- With the savings generated, they purchased a new tracking system which helped the client reduce their annual complaint rate to only 2%.
- They created a new inventory tracking system that increased efficiency by 518%.
- The hours necessary for inventory tracking were reduced to 700 down from 3,626 and one process that contained 118 steps was whittled down to 68.
- The changes in the inventory control processes translated into cost savings of $700,000.00
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$75 million in sales, 400 non-union employees
Based on down turn of business the client needed to reduce their lead times without reducing price to be more competitive in the market. The client was seeing an increased number of rejects from customers, and often times found the rejects too late. In a strategy meeting, management committed to address this critical issue.
Based on the client’s objective, a RAC Affiliate conducted an Executive Seminar to create a “lean manufacturing” strategic plan that included the specific objectives, identified the current obstacles, and communicated their vision for lean manufacturing. As a second project, the RAC Affiliate is conducted a four day cycle time reduction process on the receiving inspection process because customer returns took 17 days to correct the problem and ship back to customer. Based on the team’s work, they reduced that process to four days.
In addition to the elimination of non-value time in the receiving inspection process, the client also achieved the following results.
- Lead time reduction by 23%.
- Average cash savings increased by 31%.
- Average cost reduction decreased by 23%.
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$300 million in sales, 1800 employees
During the implementation of a customized time management process, the Vice President of Human Resources and the RAC Affiliate determined that the current hiring process was cumbersome and overly time consuming forcing more hours and rework by other departments like accounting and payroll.
A cycle time reduction process was conducted on the hiring process and the team quickly determined that there were three separate processes with three distinct software being used to process new hires. After identifying the steps of a more efficient hiring process, the team identified new software that would accomplish the objectives and eliminate most redundancies.
- The client was able to reduce the hiring process time by 60% and the organization saw a significant reduction in interdepartmental errors.
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$20 million in sales, 150 non-union employees
A capital investment was made in five new machines and the goal was to increase output on those machines taking them to a three shift, six day schedule, and machine set up lead times on the new equipment was a significant issue. Management committed to fix the challenge of eroding lead times caused by lengthy machine set up times.
A cycle time reduction process was facilitated over four days with an eight-person team. The team did a minute by minute break down of the machine set up for their computer numerically controlled machines. The team used a number of other quality tools to evaluate the process and was able to create a low cost solution that reduced the machine set up time from 2 hours and 45 minutes to 21 minutes. The team is reviewing the set up time of 70 additional machines.
In addition to reducing the set up time to 21 minutes, the client also accomplished the following results:
- Improved policies and procedures.
- Reduced cost by 20%.
- Reduced lead time by 10%.
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One of the nation's fastest growing contract manufacturers of pharmaceutical creams, ointments, and toothpastes.
Due to the untimely and unexpected death of the father, his son stepped into his new role as President and CEO of this company, at just 26 years old.
He inherited a prosperous business, and for the first year was afraid to touch a thing. His father’s focus on cost control and his authoritarian leadership style had been just what the company needed to climb out of bankruptcy. Sales were at a plateau, and they were bouncing from one market to another.
Implemented strategic planning process to transform the organization and position the company for breakthrough financial results. They developed strategic objectives for the next five years that included doubling revenues and quintupling profits. After completion of the five year forecast, the Affiliate then helped the client develop a detailed 12 month business plan. In addition, the Affiliate worked with the client to bring new talent onto the senior team and provide coaching as the business evolved.
- The business planning process has made a significant impact by bringing new discipline to decision-making. They now review new projects against other priorities in their plan, which allows staff to maintain focus.
- Managers also have a clearer understanding of the projects their colleagues are pursuing and why, since they were involved in establishing shared business priorities, which has eliminated silo-thinking and dissolved interdepartmental tensions, as well as improved customer service.
- Their focus is now on the company’s resources and major contracts that are aligned with their core competencies.
- The organization is currently making significant investments in equipment, laboratories, regulatory systems, and other aspects of its operations that enable growth and profitability.
- Two long-time employees were coached to develop the precise skills the team needed to succeed.
- In response to a $2 million downturn in sales during the past year, the organization rose to the challenge and exhibited a laser-like focus on cost control. As a result, the company doubled its profits during one of the worst economic downturns in history.
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Freelance public relations consultant for just over nine months
Owner started as a freelance consultant, and her client roster had quickly outgrown her initial infrastructure. The owner had a larger challenge on the home front – a newborn infant. With now three children and a business that was quickly encroaching on her personal time, it was time to take a hard look at the future. The owner was seeking assistance with:
- Deciding on a course of action for the future growth or stabilization of her consulting business.
- Establishing an appropriate business structure.
- Addressing throughput and capacity issues.
- Taking advantage of new business opportunities.
- Leveling the playing field with large PR agencies.
- Increasing revenue and profit to support business and personal goals.
- Managing time to allow more time with family.
The Affiliate met with the owner to examine her options, set future goals, assess current resources and infrastructure, and achieve those goals through a detailed plan of action that would allow her to become a business owner and not a freelancer.
- The owner quickly began to see positive impact of the planning phase.
- She felt confident in her decision making skills and forged ahead to implementation.
- Became known in business community as “agency,” not “freelancer.”
- Increased opportunities to work with larger clients.
- On track to meet and even exceed, revenue goals.
75% of clients now billed at new hourly rate.
- Part-time employee and additional freelancers brought on board.
- Upgrades to office and equipment are in progress.
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Aftermarket auto retailer, four locations
Out of the four retail locations only one was profitable. One was on the brink of closure, and the other two were just maintaining. The owner’s business and personal debt were increasing while the business was losing inventory, losing employees, and unable to pay vendors. The owner admitted that decisions about hiring, firing, process upgrades, and employee compensation were rash with little thought to results or consequences.
An RAC affiliate created and facilitated a strategic planning process for the owner and management team. The team worked together to create a business plan, identify critical goals, and create manageable action steps for those goals which could be reviewed on a monthly dashboard. The client examined their core values, and translated those into a vision that was communicated to all employees generating excitement among the entire team.
- A new strategic direction and actionable plan was created.
- Buy-in from entire management team was achieved.
- Decided to keep all locations open, and lagging store was profitable within two months.
- Overhaul of accounting practices, finances, staff, inventory, and mix of business.
- A process was designed and company-wide to track returns.
- Created a consistent interview process and job descriptions.
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Call Center
Management identified two significant issues within the call center that were negatively impacting results. Attendance was an issue with an average of only 204 days per year per employee. The 16 customer service reps of this retail chain fielded 30,000 calls per month with an average customer wait time of 15 minutes and dropped calls averaged 50%. Customer complaints were endless.
Using a customized cycle time reduction process, a cross-functional team of customer service representatives and a supervisor redesigned the call center solutions process.
- The same 16 customer service reps can now handle 85,000 calls per month.
- Customer wait time is down to 45 seconds.
- Dropped calls disappeared.
- Attendance increased by five weeks per employee per year.
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Specialty printer that provides plastic bags and wrappers to manufacturers and value-added distributors. They are the nation’s largest printer of election yard signs.
In 2008, they printed all of the yard signs for the McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Clinton, and Obama campaigns. There business is very seasonal, and they are often called upon to produce a product with a short lead-time due to changing market conditions and the introduction of new products. This is especially true for elections. The company was losing business and absorbing costs because they had to force many orders through a system that was designed to take much longer than the delivery times their customers were demanding. The biggest challenge was the time it took from receipt of the artwork to releasing the order to the shop floor. A typical order took 4-6 weeks to prepare, and then one week to produce and ship.
This administrative process was the focal point of a cycle time reduction event.
- The cycle time reduction process reduced the administrative process from 48 to 19 steps reducing the 4-6 week prep time to one week, which lowered costs significantly, reduced errors, held vendors accountable, and improved customer loyalty marks.
- Eliminated redundancies, reduced inspections and sign-offs.
Total time from receipt of order to shipping was reduced by a total of five weeks.
- An added bonus to this new administration system was that a new piece of equipment and a new product was introduced seamlessly into production without having to generate an entirely new procedure to administer.
- Company increased revenue in excess of 1 million.
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Computer Services Firm
The business was not achieving the level of revenue the owners had hoped for and one of the two owners seemed to be apathetic about solving the problem.
A custom designed executive leadership process was conducted with the two co-owners focusing on the strategic direction of the organization while establishing specific goals and objectives that would define their mutual success. In order to gain commitment and fuel passion for the new objectives a leadership process was facilitated with the remaining 10 employees. Using the appropriate diagnostics, a development plan was defined for each employee’s long-term growth.
- The business doubled its results, its staff, and its bottom line in less than one year.
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Call center for a national cable company
Sales representatives were only achieving a closing rate of 20% when up selling new products and services to the current customer base. Management defined a need to develop a call center strategy to maximize individual and team effectiveness that ultimately would result in increased revenues. The company needed to change the mindset of call center employees from that of “order takers” to matching services with customer needs, while creating a team environment.
Work was done to identify leadership/supervisory competencies to enable management to effectively communicate the new strategy, objectives, and goals. A customized development process was created to incorporate a proven sales process to improve closing ratios, communication, and customer service skills.
- The call center realized a 260% increase in closing rate, which exceeded the company’s goal by 105%.
- The call center experienced a dramatic increase in positive customer perception.
- All 140 sales reps increased their wages through commission despite restructuring of the pay scale.
- Every representative increased his or her personal effectiveness with the sales process, which led to this regional call center to be ranked as one of the Top 10.
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Web development firm, founded approximately eleven years ago
The owner wanted to grow the company above the ceiling that seemed to have formed. The owner was looking to increase profit and revenue. She needed to prepare the infrastructure, staff, and resources for growth, which meant she needed to increase the proportion of larger clients and projects while evaluating her product and service offerings. In addition, she felt the need to gain some professional and personal life balance.
A three-month planning process was facilitated with the owner. Upon completion of the plan, ongoing coaching was facilitated to help the client implement the plan.
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Revenues doubled year over year.
- Profits increased year over year,
- Consistently increased average size of clients and projects,
- Brought design, programming, maintenance, and support in-house—a full team of dedicated professionals to serve clients’ needs.
- Instituted an active sales program.
- Purchased a business vehicle.
- Initiated 12-month public relations campaign.
- Set a new work schedule for the owner with fewer hours at the office.
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