In today’s post we’d like to share some of our successes, and the secret weapon behind each of them. They aren’t necessarily our biggest wins. They’re in different industries. But they all illustrate a key point: data-driven decision making is critical.

 

1. How a healthcare company doubled in value

A support service provider for hospitals and physician groups was put up for sale. The majority owners were at retirement age and wanted an exit, but lacked experience with the process. They rushed the sales process and after interested buyers took advantage, the board took the company off the market.

A NextLevel Partner (and board member) initiated an in-depth review of all company operations, policies and records. All possible value detractors were resolved, and the company was repositioned at a higher value. Some of the changes included:

  • Closing redundant service centers
  • Reducing document processing workforce by more than 60%
  • Outsourcing support services
  • Updating the reporting structures to improve flexibility.

The NextLevel Partner then gathered input from all of the senior management and personally wrote an offering memorandum for distribution, overseeing the due diligence process and working closely with attorneys to finalize all contract details.

After two years of focusing on improvements, the organization was positioned to go back on the market with the right strategy and operating plans in place.

Their efforts paid off.

The company was so attractive to buyers that it had more than doubled in value, selling for a more than 100% premium over its original valuation.

The key was stopping to take stock of the situation. Identifying the barriers to sale and then developing a plan to resolve them doubled the company value in two years!

Read the full story here

 

2. How a consumer appliance company doubled sales in one year.

A three-year-old company that marketed and distributed branded small appliances to promote a healthy lifestyle wanted to launch a catalog and rapidly expand into wholesale on a nationwide scale. The CFO, now a NextLevel executive, joined the executive team just as the company was creating its first catalog and beginning its expansion into wholesale.

After analyzing the company’s financial position, the NextLevel executive realized that the company was quickly running out of cash – they only had about six weeks of operating cash available!

The NextLevel executive helped the company identify the shortfall that they were facing and identified three areas where they could potentially obtain cash:

    • Customers – specifically large national retailers
    • Vendors – factories and suppliers
    • Banks

A member of the executive team was assigned as the point person for each area.

The company was able to get advance payments from some of the national retailers in the form of letters of credit or cash advances. They negotiated extended terms from their largest factories and suppliers. They also obtained a substantial working capital line of credit with a large national bank.

Because of these financing solutions, the company successfully launched into the wholesale business.

Their sales grew from $28 million to $60 million that year and the company enjoyed record profits.

None of it would have happened without someone doing an initial financial analysis.

Read the full story here

 

3. How a struggling ERP implementation became a template for global growth and profitability improvement.

The international branch of one of the top six consulting companies in the world was struggling to deliver on a very complex ERP implementation and a management re-engineering project for their top branch customer, a large mining company. The project was critical as it also represented the foundational cornerstone for the consulting firm’s key initiative for the mining, power generation and petroleum verticals for its global operations.

The project had suffered from chronic delays and cost-overruns, and the patience of the client mining company was running thin.

A new project manager, now a NextLevel team member, was brought in. He first identified and assessed the root problems that were causing the implementation to fail.

Then he developed a series of business stabilization measures which he presented to the consulting firm’s top management and to the client company’s top executives and board. Within six months the results confirmed his forward vision produced results beyond what any had thought possible:

  • Creation of a proprietary workflow portal coupled with a complex integration layer that, together with the workflow portal, became key intellectual property (IP) assets for the consulting company. This enabled the later sale of that branch and IP to a huge international conglomerate for over 20 times value
  • The combined ERP and workflow portal enabled immediate costs savings in administration and accelerated parts and inventory purchases by up to 35%. This created significant additional savings by facilitating just-in-time delivery of parts and supplies for the mining company
  • Turned around the project from a potential failure to a huge success story that enabled the consulting company to sell multiple additional millions of dollars worth of workflow portal & SAP/Oracle ERP implementations to multiple mining, petroleum and energy generation clients around the world.

Careful assessment made the difference. Once the barriers were identified, solutions could be created. A failing process turned into a model of ‘how to do it’ – all because someone stopped to take stock of the situation.

Read the full story here

So, what’s our secret?

Data-driven decision making.

Accurate data let’s you see the situation clearly, and create solutions to address it correctly. Without good data, it’s all just guesswork.

Without a careful financial analysis, a company would have run out of operating cash within weeks. Another company would have sold for half its value – if it sold at all. Without stopping to assess the situation, an ERP implementation would have failed, possibly ending a major relationship.

Having good data is critical.

Need some help from a data-driven partner?  Get in touch now!