MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
Business turnaround project for a young FMCG Brand
Management
Consulting
A large family owned group in plantation crops and trading group wanted to create value and had launched their owned retail brand. They had created a brand & spent huge amount on advertisement & marketing without much revenue. The team kept asking for money to spend on brand building and advertisements and this got into a vicious circle.
The requirement given was to arrest and minimize the wastage and grow the revenues while first few months of the financial year was already over. Also the group wanted further funds and lending institutions were interested to see the progress in terms of financial and business results
Consulting
A large family owned group in plantation crops and trading group wanted to create value and had launched their owned retail brand. They had created a brand & spent huge amount on advertisement & marketing without much revenue. The team kept asking for money to spend on brand building and advertisements and this got into a vicious circle.
The requirement given was to arrest and minimize the wastage and grow the revenues while first few months of the financial year was already over. Also the group wanted further funds and lending institutions were interested to see the progress in terms of financial and business results
We assessed the current status in terms of team, distribution network, plant capacity, current portfolio of products, SKU wise pricing, Sales data sales associate wise, geography wise, channel wise, distribution wise and SKU wise with whatever data was available.
After the assessment the following plan was formulated and executed.
- First step was to align at the management level on the requirements. The sales target was agreed upon and divided between regions and then to the last sales executive level. They were given the necessary sales tools, brochure, POS elements (most of them were lying in warehouse) and requisite training through the consultants who were engaged.
- SKU wise sales in terms of value and volume was studied and pricing corrections for the year was made to enable revenue growth and volume growth.
- Plant capacity for fast moving SKU was added in terms of small packaging machinery.
- Targets were fixed for various channels like General trade, Modern trade and E-commerce
- An e-commerce partner was engaged to sell high margin products through online platform
- Modern trade receivables, sales customer wise as studied in depth and based on the study customers were reengaged with specific SKU’S as this was a huge drain with certain customers. Dedicated distributors for MT channel were engaged and motivated to grow the sales.
- General trade schemes launched for every month based on pack and sales team
- Website/Digital marketing efforts were launched on a limited way and the huge spend made earlier was reduced substantially as it was not linked to sales.
- Daily /weekly/monthly reviews on various metrics were initiated and corrective action taken.
- Warehouse challenges/logistics costs were analyzed and streamlined.
- Plant costs, co-ordination between plant and sales were enhanced with daily MIS on stock status, inventory was sales forecast etc.
- An ERP vendor engaged by the company got activated to complete the project and hand over to the company so that all functions got linked to the platform
- All print/TV advertised were reduced substantially
Results Delivered
Methodical approach and regular reviews brought down the costs and revenues started growing. As against 2:1 loss to revenue ratio in the previous year, it improved to 0.7:1.0 in the current financial year.
Technology consulting
Consulting
A large Global company gave a general brief to develop a unique B2C Product in the retail sector with IOT hardware and cloud based software which hitherto was not available in the market.
The mandate also involved in finding a supplier who could complete the entire project or with limited partners. The brief had compliance requirements, performance requirements, uniqueness and also cost targets
We initiated the following steps:
- Researched the market and identified all possible and potential companies including start-ups who had or could do such a product. They were engaged and were asked to demonstrate their current capabilities with their current product. Also the brief was shared in a limited way and they were individually asked to come with the product which met the requirements.
- After assessing all the suppliers spread over few weeks few suppliers were shortlisted based on their capabilities to meet the end user requirements
- After further discussion and assessment one potential supplier amongst the suppliers was agreed upon and given the go ahead.
- The POC ( Proof of Concept ) Machine of the vendor was stripped open to assess the current status and current performance across various parameters
- A detailed action plan was made in terms of components, Design, hardware vendors were identified which could help create the product both in terms of design and costs
- Manufacturing partners were in parallel assessed across geographies who could meet the requirements including costs and a partner was closed.
- All the vendors were coordinated along with manufacturing partners spread across multiple weeks to redesign the entire machine in terms of components, material to meet the performance and cost considerations.
- The Bill of materials was constantly reviewed to ensure that cost targets were met
- The alpha prototypes were made and the final beta prototype was produced to meet almost all the requirements of the end client
- The product had to be continuously tested for hardware and software and performance
- The final product design along with the costs were frozen for the market trials
Results Delivered
In a nutshell, the project got delivered for the market trials and subsequent commercialization.
Enabling early stage startups to success
Startup 1
Startups
The brief involved enabling the startup and the founder to build the equipment, hardware product, test it along with the software across various sectors.
Also support the team in terms of pitch decks, business decks, business model validation, financials along with identifying various potential clients and channel partners to grow the business with revenues and create value so that investors would invest.
- Worked closely with the founder and the team like a virtual co-founder and helped in arranging the various products
- Tested the product in various stages in- house and externally to create a viable plug and play hardware
- Identified various clients, reached out and sold the solution with multiple revenue streams as “ SAAS Model”
- Pivoted the business model to include a product with the startup solution along with hardware and software with a third party manufacturer. This led to new revenue stream and helped in generating more customers
- Also identified various potential clients in Europe/ USA and engaged with them along with the solutions
- This led to initial investment from large investor enabling the startup to reach the next growth stage and new investments from VC’S
Startup 2
Startups
The brief involved converting the idea into a Proof of concept and then building a minimum viable product (MVP) which was a technology platform with inhouse and external vendors.
Also incorporate the company in the USA with necessary requirements and mentor the startup regularly on business model, product improvements, patent and documentation etc till investments are raised.
Mandate was to convert the idea into a viable technology product, incorporating the company in the USA and mentor till investments were raised.
Delivered the following in 18 months:
- Creation of co-founders
- Incorporation of the startup in USA along with all compliance requirements
- Build a business model and revenue options
- Identify independent contractors to support the business
- Support in terms of product development/ business agreements/ potential clients in new geographies
- Create awareness through LinkedIn and other platforms .
Net result
Enabled incorporation successfully and supported product development and the startup has raised seed investments from investors.
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