Our Approach
Our approach is to start at the end and work backwards. The end is profitability. How can we make your business more profitable?
Usually the answer is improving productivity by using your existing accounting and ERP system more effectively. How this occurs differs from client to client. If we cannot see a way to improve your profit by an amount of at least twice our fees, we say so and step back.
Where do we find these lost profits?
Usually we find lost profits in cost savings or lost sales, sometimes in both. Identifying losses is easy. Our clients know where the problems lie. They tell us. What they need from us are ways to solve these problems. But, on occasion, we see problems (and opportunities) our clients overlook and then we point them out.
On the cost side, we look first at the big cost centers and try to find ways to reduce these costs without harming sales. Usually this means saving labor, inventory and overhead. There are others but we see these over and over.
On the sales side, we look for ways to increase sales to existing customers by stocking inventory optimally, identifying up- and cross-sales opportunities, reducing fulfillment times and implementing realistic forecasts of sales and usage. We give sales and marketing departments useful information which make them more successful. And we often build integration bridges between internal systems and external markets (Amazon, Ebay, etc.). There are other ways and, again, each engagement is different.
How much extra profit our clients realize from our work is a function of how bad things are when we arrive. The worse things are, the more profit we can recover for you. If your business runs optimally, congratulations! Do not hire us. But if your business runs less than optimally, let’s talk.