Our first case study: knowing where to cut costs and where to invest
The Challenge
The
business is facing closure. It’s not profitable.
The Mr & Mrs Accountant Solution
We
can help improve your profits and grow your business
When
you think of profit improvement and accountants do you automatically
think cost cutting? Of marketing, training and staff – in fact
anything of any long term value?
Well
that’s understandable – in Jan’s previous incarnation as a
Finance Director he had to play the grim reaper a few times.
In
Jan’s first job as a Finance Director his Company had a major
“profit improvement exercise” – yes, staff numbers and also
other costs were cut – indeed marketing was slashed!
It
was a mail order business and at the time they were losing lots of
money; in fact, Jan learned later that if the exercise wasn’t
successful the Company was going to be closed. For mail order now
read eCommerce.
By
careful analysis of the company’s performance it was discovered
that a key part of the operation - catalogue mailing order segments -
weren’t performing. Also, by
carefully targeting profitable segments only, huge amounts of money
were saved. Finally, by investing in a policy of sending out orders part
complete, and the rest of the order only when it was in stock, it
transformed profitability. Previously the Company waited until the
whole order was in stock and therefore “complete” before
despatching the order.
Although
postage costs went up, yet so did customer satisfaction and profits with the business quickly
going on to make a lot of money in the next few years.
Through our
profit improvement exercises we look not just at overheads but also
examine customer retention, getting more from each customer, getting
more from your marketing, maximising production efficiency, managing
your stock and debtors and buying better. We help prioritise the
important.
We
can help you come up with an action plan for saving you money and
building your business.
Our second case study: what if you suspect fraud?
The Challenge
What if business performance is poor and you suspect a fraud?
We went into a business a few years ago which was a subsidiary of a group of companies; business performance had collapsed from £2m profit a year to a loss of £1m. The local Managing Director had been sacked and the local finance officer had resigned. Everyone who worked in the business had lost direction. It became apparent as we started to work in the business with the new Managing Director that staff morale had been decimated under the direction of the previous Managing Director.
We also suspected there might have been fraud going on. In particular we had a major sub-contractor supplier who suffered from persistent quality issues on parts supplied, threatening the future viability of our client.
The Mr & Mrs Accountant Solution
We suspected that the former Managing Director was connected to the owner of the sub-contract business. After a review of the books of our business we found that the equipment in the sub-contractor’ business actually belonged to the business we were working with!
We negotiated to gain legal control of the sub-contract business and improved quality issues dramatically. We also got the staff working together and turned the business back to making a small profit in less than 9 months.The business went on to make good profits for a number of years and was eventually sold by the group for a good income.
We can help business owners get control over their business and get growing again.