Restaurant Equipment Supplier

Executive Summary:

The client was a restaurant equipment supplier in the upper Midwest. The owners wanted to grow the company from their current revenue of 13 million dollars to 15 million dollars the first year and 20 million dollars the following year. The owner's ultimate goal was to grow to 100 million dollars and compete on a national level.

Given the scope of the project, this required multiple visits with multiple project directors and is still ongoing.

Client:

The client is a minority, woman-owned restaurant equipment supplier that has been in business for 40 years. They have multiple departments that provide a)onsite construction, b)an in-house storefront, and c)a warehouse for deliveries and to store off-site project equipment. Six family members work in the company with 2 other non-family employees. The parents hope to pass along an extremely successful company to their four kids in the near future.

Challenge:

The client had several family dynamics that needed to be addressed. It was determined that they had minimal SOPs and processes resulting in lost AR from customers and late AP for their vendors. Each family member had specific jobs that they performed and if one family member was out then the tasks were not completed resulting in finger-pointing. Lack of leadership at times was an issue. While the company had always been successful, they typically were treading water at the end of the year financially.

Objectives:

Develop quick wins to increase revenue quickly. This included creating new SOPs for AR/AP processes and developing a project management planning program for off-site construction projects.

Implementation:

Implementation of these few processes were going to require training for all members of the family. Typically this was performed after-hours or before the day started at the office. The client was beginning to see the benefits of having these processes, though was still unsure since they had been doing things differently for so long. Recovering long lingering account revenue was a big ticket item for them. Also, bringing all accounts current with their vendors provided goodwill.

Conclusion:

After the initial review with the client, it was determined that this would be a long-term engagement. The project was eventually handed off to another project director as it was time for me to exit the engagement. At the last iteration, the project was still ongoing with the client still meeting revenue goals and winning larger projects with government organizations.