Case StudiesClick to view the following case studies:
Market dominance target for Builders Merchant A major UK Builders Merchant took the opportunity to double its market share through the acquisition of one of its nearest rivals. The outcome of this acquisition was an £800m turnover business employing in excess of 6500 people. Brooklands was appointed to project manage the post transaction integration programme over a nine month period. First up actions included the development of integration plans, including benefits, costs and timescales. Integration project teams were established – reporting to a steering committee - for all key areas with specific allocation of benefit targets. The integration management comprised of a small team to oversee the process, with Brooklands as overall facilitators. Our hands-on role in support of the integration Chairman was to ensure hard and soft issues were addressed simultaneously and to:
The eventual outcome of the integration was market leadership and a tripling of market capitalisation. Major PLC merges subsidiaries to maximise synergy benefits A major UK PLC decided to bring together two of its subsidiary businesses, one supplying laminate products to the building industry and the other a major supplier of panel products to cabinet and kitchen manufacturers. The combined turnover of the two businesses amounted to around £80m. Whilst similar in terms of geographical spread, employees and number of distribution sites, the businesses were culturally very different and had very little customer overlap. The operating methodology of the businesses was very different and all of these factors combined created a challenging integration process for the management team. Brooklands was engaged for a six month period to assist the senior management team in the following specific areas:
Major Builders Merchant acquires large Plumbers Merchant The UK market leader acquired the second largest builders and plumbers merchant with a combined turnover in excess of £1.4bn, and staff numbers approaching 10,000. Brooklands was appointed to assist in the integration process during two specific phases. During stage one, in support of HR, we interviewed (one to one and in groups) over six hundred central function staff over a two month period to establish key issues. The interview questions (as follow up to the survey) included the following;
The Brooklands role, whilst very broad, had specific focus at stage two (six months) in the following areas, where we:
Major Ferry Operator integration Following a twelve month ‘cost reduction’ project at the holding company, we were awarded a further twelve-month contract by Europe’s largest ferry company to facilitate the integration of a new acquisition into the business. The new company, with a combined turnover of some 9 billion SEK and some 7,000 employees, operates across the Irish Sea, the North Sea and throughout the Baltic region. The Brooklands role covered all functions, areas and geographical locations with the objectives of facilitating, mentoring, project managing and providing ‘hands on’ project resource:
Project Teams were created in the areas of Sales & Marketing, Call Centres, Freight, Ship Management, Administration, HR, and IT. Whilst financial targets were included in the case for the acquisition the first step in this pan European company was the involvement of senior management in the development and hence ownership of targets and plans. Pan European Ferry company challenges cost Operating in a mature market, hit by increased direct and indirect competition and suffering from the loss of duty free, the company’s cultural and attitudinal sediment made attempts to address its cost base insufficiently effective. The challenge set was to ‘cut the fat without affecting the muscle’, i.e. customer experience was not to be affected. Brooklands ensured that the issues were confronted through the creation of a Cost Gap Challenge steering and working groups. Operational Leaders were envisioned and skills sharpened (one to one and small group working), all costs were analysed from a business and customer service angle. We facilitated and mentored the development of action plans and were retained to assist with the implementation plan. Over a three year period the business saved some £110m. Importantly, executives felt empowered, shareholders confidence was restored, the savings enabled the growth of the route and revenue structure and paved the way for the acquisition of a number of competitors. Leading UK distribution business addresses its cost base Operating in a personal relationship selling environment in which decentralised, branch led entrepreneurial behaviour was a key factor in its commercial success, and following a series of major acquisitions, the business found itself with a very high cost base. Attempts to tackle the situation were frustrated by Directors and key executives defending their own functional areas. The challenge was to reduce costs without adversely affecting the entrepreneurial trading spirit. A target of £5m cost saving was set. Brooklands worked in support of the Board and management teams – consolidating and analysing data, and influencing and facilitating the change process. Over a one year period some £17m of costs were saved, enhancing profitability and providing a sound base for future growth. Our client is a highly regarded, customer focussed technical product and service provider operating throughout the world. Whilst the overall business was highly profitable questions existed whether each area’s profitability was truly reflective of its own stand alone status i.e. could profitability be further enhanced. Profitability was measured and monitored on a monthly basis – but, in common with most businesses, the key profit measures were product/service offerings rather than customer profitability. Brooklands worked with the business to set up a robust customer profitability reporting process. The cost drivers for each of the departments were identified, enabling a customer profitability model to be developed based on ABC (Activity Based Costing) principles. This resulted in transparency of costs and revenue for all customer accounts to be determined. A very wide range of customer profitability was revealed. Issues were revealed, such as:
Credit Services re-structuring Our client, a multi-branch UK distribution business, operated in a branch/regional empowered trading environment. The business had a centralised credit control organisation collecting circa £80m per month from 140,000 live customers. Debtor days were increasing and customer satisfaction with service both internally & externally was low. Efforts to remedy the situation had made no discernible progress. The resultant innovative solution, which required no IT or capital expenditure, of localised and centralised activities based on clear and simple, customer focussed processes based on 16 regional offices was implemented over a 6 month period to achieve a step change in performance. This was immediately followed by the creation of a continuous improvement process, structure and culture to maintain and progress performance improvement. Our client, a major pan European passenger transport company, operated a number of call centres in various regional offices. Key issues included cost effectiveness and costs of each distribution channel. The consumer preference towards increased use of the internet for booking forced the business to question the structure for its call centres.
Ship Management - achieving control & confidence in daily running costs The business operates worldwide with a variety of nationals. The business was focussed on the manning and running of its own ships as well as third party ships, however problems existed in the control of costs and budget achievement. Brooklands worked with the company reviewing the structure, culture and systems/process of the business as the precursor of cost control and budget achievement. Using an innovative yet structured approach:
Costs were significantly reduced and enhanced control of the operation improved. Customer feedback was extremely positive as confidence in cost performance was significantly enhanced. Brooklands was retained by a major plc to report on a recently acquired subsidiary. The company operated throughout Europe, operating a container logistics business – with the vast majority of their business being with a few major blue chip FMCG companies. The newly installed management had ambitious expansion plans – although the business was losing increasing amounts of cash, and internal sales, profit and cash projections were proving to be unrealistic and unreliable. The holding company was one step away from closing the business down. Acting as a recovery team the immediate priority was to stabilise the business/’stop the bleeding’. Following a speedy initial diagnosis phase Brooklands implemented a number of key steps:
Once the stabilising phase was sufficiently established a change implementation phase was started addressing issues such as:
As a result of Brooklands actions the business was saved, profitability returned and cash flow became positive. The business was sold to the new Senior Management Team – who some two years later sold it on to an industry buyer. A major UK facilities plc had to review its strategy in the light of major market conditions and turmoil. The revised strategy had been cascaded down to all facilities – but implementation of the strategy was an issue. Brooklands was retained to:
The outputs of this process included:
A leading private equity house engaged Brooklands to carry out pre deal operational (capability) due diligence on the UK market leading tool and construction equipment hire business. This involved working with the potential MBO team in the area of business planning and assessing the management team’s ability regarding organic scalability. After three months Brooklands worked closely with a new potential BIMBO (part buy-in, buy-out) team, in the construction of a plausible business plan.On the completion of the buy-out, Brooklands was engaged by the new management team for an 18 month period, and worked on the critical areas of:
Metal Recycling business capability due diligence Brooklands was engaged by a leading private equity house to carry out a capability due diligence study on a successful and highly profitable multi-site metal recycling business. The sector is notoriously difficult to analyse due to a lack of formal operating methods and procedures, the ‘entrepreneurial’ style of management and the lack of hard information. Key areas that were analysed in detail included:
The outcome of our investigation was a detailed report which in turn led to the private equity house seeing the need for a renegotiation of the buy-out terms between the interested parties for the deal to make financial sense. Vending business capability due diligence A leading private equity house engaged Brooklands to carry out a capability due diligence study on a southern based vending business, which had recently acquired a northern based operation. Brooklands carried out detailed analysis of the following:
A leading building materials distribution group gave Brooklands the brief – to agree on the role of the HR function and the desired contribution/added value that could be expected from it. Brooklands carried out this process through a series of stages that included:
The innovative solution was to create an integrated function divided three key areas, these being:
Once the new function had settled the HR solution was recommended as the structure of preference across all group divisional businesses throughout the world. Creation of major new Commercial Division
Operating in a complex, multi product and multi brand national distribution arena, our client asked us to assess certain product streams and assess the potential for growth – given the added complexity of internal competition.
We carried out a three stage process that included:
The process was carried out using a blend of internal and external research, creative management workshops, supplier and customer visits. The outcome was the recommendation to create a new division that would enable the group to maximise synergies and potential in high growth opportunity areas. A key component of the new division was strong leadership in creating a growth strategy and managing the interfaces between previously competing businesses.
On the creation of the new £350m division, we assisted with the analysis and implementation of the integration of the operations facilities, including logistics and supply chain.
The added value outcome of the project was the development of a clear market strategy and supporting structure that is taking very positive advantage of industry opportunities in a very challenging environment. Commercial function re-design
Following a back office review, we advised our client to take a closer look at the areas of core business versus common shared support functions, and in particular the roles of procurement and product management.
After a detailed review, analysis and a series of creative workshops, we recommended that the commercial area be reconfigured to develop a more customer facing bias, and the function was divided into three critical areas, with a clear distinction between front and back office: 1. The Market
2. Procurement and delivery
3. Information support
An important feature of the structure was to separate lead management between 1 and 2/3 above, so as to ensure that the Market is always seen to be the customer of the back office functions and takes the lead in all product ranging and commercial decisions.
The outcome was a transparent and effective market facing structure, ensuring that the business remains totally focussed on its customers and their needs. Salesforce re-organisation
Our client operates in a complex and diverse market place selling across several large sectors outside of its core customer platform. Evolving over time, the roles of the various layers of sales management and account management became blurred and overlap was evident from both within the business and from the customer perspective.
The Sales and Marketing function was run with a big ‘S’ and a small ‘m’, the result of which was a very tactical approach and very little strategic thought behind the structure and the resultant market interface. The most negative factor surrounded the missing of major contracts as opportunities ‘fell through the net’ and ownership became confused.
The role of Brooklands was to analyse the situation and advise corrective actions. As an outcome we identified certain critical areas that needed to be addressed:
As a result we put forward recommendations the outcome of which was to:
The outcome of the above project is a high performing accountable sales team working to very clear market driven objectives.
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