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Performance Improvement |
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At WASALOS Consulting, we bring broad and deep expertise across several economic sectors and regions of the world. We draw on this experience base to help multi-nationals and local firms beat competition and produce exceptional financial returns. But we are not trapped in any single region’s traditions. We bring together perspectives from a wide range of regions, industries and business models. So, our clients can see what others don't. And we seek out a practical course of action, not an abstract conceptual model. So you get better results, faster. The one-size-fits-all approached used by many foreign companies in Africa rarely yields the expected results. Most multinational business models are based on practices established in developed markets: game is won slowly by finding cost savings and making product improvements that capture single percentage points of market share over time…… amongst emerging markets, perhaps only China can provide short term growth to justify such a strategy. Yet, that continues to be the approach of certain multinationals in Africa.
Firms that consistently marry greater efficiency with higher productivity in serving customers generate the highest shareholder returns. In the current climate, cost reduction is critical to rebuild margins. But leaders don't just cut costs when they creep higher. They squeeze out expenses, through good times and bad, and relentlessly simplify products and processes. We took that approach when we worked with one major brokerage client. We helped the client implement a smart complexity-reduction approach to streamline decision making, simplify core operations and better align them to business unit goals, and consolidate back office operations. The result: The firm reaped an initial cost reduction of $3 million and the savings continue to accrue. By redirecting the organization's focus on the customer rather than on internal processes, revenues also increased which doubled within 12 months. In parallel, we helped develop new product offerings through additional distribution channels. Weekly meetings with middle management and regular communications to all staff ensured organizational alignment with the changes. Within two years, revenues had increased 33% and costs reduced by 17%.
To reach its full potential, a company must achieve world class performance across multiple dimensions. Improving performance may come in the form of: revenue enhancement, cost management, supply chain, purchasing, manufacturing, service operations, complexity management, change management, lean six sigma, capability sourcing, and/or business process redesign. In combination with a differentiated and well focused strategy, performance improvement is fundamental to a company's success. Our performance improvement work is at the heart of what we do as a firm. A survey of major projects in this area shows that, within two to three years, our clients achieve an average of 15 percent revenue growth and raise margins by 7 percentage points. As part of our commitment to creating value, we often tie our own fees to our clients' results. Our approach ensures that clients achieve leadership in their core business, expand thoughtfully, and constantly improve through operational excellence. Typically, we start by using simple diagnostic tools, such as the revenue enhancement and proprietary cost benchmarks, to identify the key levers for improving performance in a given situation. For the key priorities to improve performance, we define specific goals. Then we pool client and WASALOS’ resources and use the most valuable tools, WASALOS’ functional expertise, and change management techniques to deliver results. We have a number of ways to help companies achieve their full potential.
PROFIT HUNT:A profit hunt is a 3- to 9 month initiative focused on identifying and understanding a company's key drivers of profitability, and then designing and achieving quick-hit profit improvements. Typically, more than half the profit uplift comes from revenue increases. The remainder comes from reducing both internal costs, operational excellence and supplier costs reductions. WASALOS Consulting exploit new sources of profit. Our focus on large opportunities that can be implemented quickly differentiates our approach. Within weeks of starting a profit hunt, joint client and WASALOS teams are piloting and rolling out improvements, and seeing very rapid gains to the bottom line. We generate ideas by brainstorming, identifying best practices & benchmarking against companies in the client's industry and as well as similar industries, and drawing on our own profit-hunt experience. After prioritizing ideas with most profit potential and practicality, we help implement profitability programs like new product launches, head-count reduction, and improvements to pricing and purchasing. | |||
For emerging markets, particularly Africa, the two most critical factors are scale & speed. Multinationals can gain scale by: i) Identify clusters of similar consumers across multiple markets ii) Work at a more local level, gaining scale in specific regions & categories by teaming up with deeply knowledgeable on-the-ground partners. They can help not only in product development, but also in distribution and marketing positioning --- the final step to reaching highly local consumer markets. 
