Management Consulting
Corporate Governance
Our client facing team has served as executives, non-executives and chairs to commercial, not-for-profit and education volunteer boards. As graduate members of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, (AICD), Company Directors Course, we remain abreast of changes in the business landscape.
Executive Support
From time to time, executives need support to undertake step-change improvements to the business. These critical projects can stretch executives or the collective skills of the organisation to the limit or beyond. A temporary concentration of capable and experienced minds can make the difference between a project that never lifts-off to one that succeeds beyond expectation.
Business Analysis
When an organisation needs to change or improve, it first needs to understand what its own needs really are and then find practical solutions to achieve them. They include process improvement, organizational change or strategic planning but often involve the development of some software application or integration of existing systems. A process map is a helpful way to visualise processes.
Franchise Handbook Preparation
Before you can franchise your business, you need a definitive guide to the franchisees about all the aspects of your business that you want them to preserve. The franchise handbook is akin to a comprehensive quality management system for the conduct, service, products and image of the business and would become part of the legally binding contract. As such it holds all the “goodwill” of the business being franchised and therefore should be prepared with precision and care.
Business Pre-Sale Planning
In a similar vein to preparing a business for franchising, a business being sold is far more than the financial value of the assets and the forward contracts. Auditors are usually appointed to value the stock, assets and forward contracts, whereas the IP and all its’ nuances regarding what to do and how to deliver the service or products mitigates the potential disruption to business. Particularly for small, (owner-manager), businesses, the incumbent employees would normally hold all this knowledge and therefore represent a liability to the new owners as they can make or break the business. Pre-sale planning not only delivers a detailed “As-Is” instruction for continuation but is a management instruction manual and therefore one of the best anchor points from which to begin improving efficiency.
Inventory Control Systems
Inventory, (and stock), often represents a significant proportion of a business’ current assets but is usually the least accurately known at any moment, often estimated by an algorithm related to sales. However, it is the precise knowledge of what inventory or stock is on the shelf that enables fast and efficient delivery of product to the customer. The balance sheet commonly includes an anticipated inventory value unless a recent physical count has been undertaken and this can differ wildly from the count result, usually implying negative adjustment. So, it is most helpful from both a financial and operational viewpoint, that inventory is closely controlled but the activity of controlling inventory does not add value to the final product, so should be considered as a wasteful practise.
Identification of items is the key to efficient control and counting, which would typically be handled by modern MRP systems through bar-coding of items and/or their storage locations, but this is difficult for custom-engineered parts that have short shelf-times and usually involves printing and sticking an adhesive ticket. A highly efficient solution is to integrate the CAD system with the inventory database so that the (folded) engineering drawing of the part doubles as its stock ticket and quality inspection guide. See Systems integration.