Background
Customised Sheet Metal limited “CSM” have 27 years of experience in the industry, specialising in crafting bespoke and seamless metal fabrications. They timeless architectural products and custom-made warehouse materials, handling and storage solutions.
Challenges
CSM were very good at the technical side of what they do, but as they would readily admit they weren’t very good at the business side. They had huge potential, but because they had so little business infrastructure is was going to be a challenge to get them up to speed quickly.
How we helped
- We took CSM through our Mustard Diagnostic that looked at all aspects of the business, how well they were documented, now well they were applied, how effective they were and who was responsible.
- The resultant report showed how much value had been created in the business, and how much was yet to be created, across all the different functions of the business.
- A traffic lighted action report that was produced prioritised the actions that were needed to be able to scale the business.
- We agreed objectives and KPI’s for the company.
- We revised the organisational structure, assigned job roles to key staff and made sure that everyone had a clear job role with KPI’s.
- We set up monthly board meetings with clear agenda’s, reporting and action points.
- We helped to source and implement a job management system to enable job quoting, resource planning, job management, job profit reporting and client management.
- We helped to source and implement an accounting system to integrate with the production system and produce comprehensive financial reports versus budgets.
- We identified ideal client criteria; differentiators for the business; customer service metrics; customer education plans; and routes to market.
- We helped to rebrand the business to reflect their proposition and introduced them to another one of our clients, Bright Collie, as their band agency.
- We help to draft a marketing plan and introduced them to another one of our clients All Trousers to advise and develop and implement the plan.
- We introduced a bonus scheme so that all team members are aligned with the vision for the company and a rewarded for the success that they help to create.
Outcomes
The outcome was we turned the business around from a peak and trough business that just reacted to business as it came in, either had too little work or two much work, to a business that had clarity on what is was, where it was going and how to get there. It is now a business that makes consistent monthly profits and is able to cope with dramatic growth.
