Business Projects

The key to our success is providing quality service.

As part of moving forward, you and your staff will be addressing some tough issues. The need in the marketplace for effective service continues to drive new ways of organizing and thinking for many beverage suppliers and their supply-chain partners. Our beverage industry consulting experience includes projects focusing on improving customer service, company profitability and how supply-chain vendors can grow their business on a national, state and local level.

Based upon your unique needs and requirements, we can provide a project proposal detailing the needed strategies and action plans that should be considered for you to meet your company goals along with identifying opportunities and recommended activities for us to provide value-added service.

We would begin by meeting with you and key members of your management group to discuss your
requirements and needs. This effort could include working with you and your management team in
determining how we would fit into the change process by evaluating your current situation, the capabilities of your service systems and current staff.

For either beverage business startups or established companies, each business project has its unique requirements depending on several key factors which could include the size of the company, the capabilities of the personnel involved, overriding project constraints and the timing of implementation.

Typical business projects have one or more of the following elements included in their scope of work.

1. A Company Review

The purpose of the company review is to provide you with a working document upon which future activities are based. The underlying assumption is that you need to look at all the issues. We would determine, with you, how we fit into the change process by evaluating your current customer service systems needs and the capabilities of your staff. This process includes describing the business by identifying areas of overall strength and needed improvements.

The breadth and scope of this company review is very dependent on the size and capabilities of your company.

We might look at several key strategic areas including:

• Sales Growth.
• Customer Service.
• Production Capacity.
• Communications.
• Compensation Plans.
• Management Reporting.
• Financial Performance.

The review process would begin by interviewing key people within your organization and discussing such items as service policy, buying patterns, trade execution, compensation, turnover and general work flow.

The result of the company review includes:

• Identifying the causes of any current or potential operating problems.
• Analyzing how identified problems are affecting the company and potentially hindering your ability to meet goals.
• Determining the order of magnitude of your underlying strategic challenges.
• Developing practical recommendations that will allow you to leverage your company's resources.
• Reviewing future plans including defining our role in assisting your organization and developing a company plan.

2. Business Planning

We can meet with key executives to ensure project goals are aligned and work within your company to create a seamless organization, while addressing systems implications and identifying the strategic options needed to leverage your unique company values.

This process could include working with management in the creative planning process to revisit the company's vision, customer service policies, financial performance, vendors, chain management and execution, span of control and management's new role.

We can work with management to identify improvement opportunities for the entire customer service function including distributor network communications, information flow, transportation, order handling and billing, and sales services by market, by distribution channel and by segment.

3. Organization Design & Staffing

Many systems design issues are dependent on who you are and what you want. One of the biggest errors of modern management is the belief that improvements in parts of the system will improve how the total system works. You might need to look at what the total system-wide implications are of each phase of your business.

We can help and guide upper management through the organization planning process. This organizational planning process provides the framework to reach your goals and improve profitability through better management and communication. The organizational planning process helps everyone buy-in to changes and improvements.

We can work with you and your management team to develop an organization and system that can provide the needed flexibility to meet your unique, ever-changing market conditions. We could work with you and your management team to develop and define sales management staffing needs and reporting systems requirements.

4. Compensation

We can work with you and your executive staff to develop performance-based compensation plans that motivate and make jobs more desirable for the key management and staff of Sales, Operations and Administration. These plans include determining the compensation make-up and establishing how much base, commission, incentive or bonus is appropriate by position.

5. Implementation

We provide ongoing program support by working with you and your management team to implement all program elements to your satisfaction. This includes reviewing and revising company planning, redefining operations work flows, debugging systems, developing new policies and procedures, revising work standards, monitoring compensation and performance criteria, visiting the field, assisting in negotiations and following up with management personnel to ensure program integrity.