Working closely with a variety of SME business owners in their businesses to identify both business improvement and growth opportunities to improve their business sustainability and profitability.  Implementing business strategies and change management programs to ensure the future success of their businesses.

This includes conducting business reviews to identify both potential and actual issues, recommendations, and either overseeing / helping with, or completing the implementation of the recommendations.

Achievements have included:

• After identifying from customer surveys that price was not an issue, completing a full costing- by -truck for a haulage company to work out new charge out rates which covered both individual truck and other support costs to deliver a more profitable gross margin.
• Restructured management / financial accounts by business segment to identify gross margins by segment and rework costs. This identifies individual segment issues.
• Setup cashflow forecasting models which could be used by an import / export manufacturer to secure funding lines from their bank. This included both a flow chart and timeline so that the bank could fully understand the timings from deposits paid to overseas manufacturers through to payment receipts from both New Zealand and overseas customers.
• Identified the issue in a construction company’s project system that had caused them significant inventory and billing issues delay in completing their monthly management accounts. The issue-fix was very minor – less than two hours of developer time and vastly improved the company’s cashflow.

Engaged by the Directors to carry out a business process improvement program in order to improve the Company’s reporting processes and reporting capability.

Achievements:

• Implemented new business processes into both Operations and Finance to significantly reduce the month end reporting cycle.
• Wrote business plan and business processes for the restructure of the Finance and Administration Departments to facilitate a significantly reduced month end reporting cycle and to free up the Finance Department to allow them to become involved in value added projects plus provide value added management reports to both the Directors and Business Managers of the business in order to help them make more informed decisions.

Responsible for providing commercial, strategic, financial, systems and project support to the Divisional General Manager, the Business Unit Managers including their Management Teams plus the Corporate Office as required.  Responsibilities include:

Ensuring that the profitability of the NZ Industrial Division is optimised and that strategic opportunities are developed and actioned.  Managing both the Division’s monthly and weekly financial and management reporting / forecasting requirements including discussing the results and forecasts with the Corporate Management Team on a weekly basis.  Managing the Division’s annual budget and budget consolidation process plus presenting the completed Divisions budget to the Corporate Management Team. Managing the Division’s Business Improvement Programme which includes:

• A forum for all of the Division’s Business Unit Managers and Commercial Mangers to meet on a regular basis to discuss both initiatives and issues and ways to improve the business.
• Reviewing the business and working with the Business Units to identify cost saving and revenue enhancing initiatives.
• Reviewing the business and working with the Business Units to remove complexity in order to simplify processes and make it both easier for us to do business with our customers / suppliers and for them to do business with us.

Achievements: 

• Implemented the Business Improvement process into the NZ Industrial Division including the setting up of the discussion forum, reporting templates and writing of presentations for the NZ Industrial Division Management Team. The Business Improvement Programme is forecast to produce $300k+ of savings in its first year from 35 initiatives across the business.

Conducted a review of Rail Infrastructures Plant Department in order to improve returns on capital investment.  This included an investigation of the Plant Department, writing a formal report of the findings / issues resulting from that investigation, plus recommendations and an action item plan to improve the Rail Plant Business.  This report was presented to both members of the Downer Australia and Rail Infrastructure Executive.  The recommendations and associated action item plan, when implemented, should enable Rail Infrastructure to increase its EBIT value by $5m+ per annum.

The report covered improved management reporting, plant utilisation, improved plant reporting, whole of life costing, capacity planning, future plant requirements, plant costing and billing, procurement, workforce planning / employee utilisation and the need for a low-cost plant management system.

Achievements: 

• Set up weekly review process to monitor delivery against the action plan.
• Identified that plant hire charges did not include cost of capital, all operator on-costs or cover operator differential pay rates for overtime, night shifts and specialised working environments, so wrote new costing models to recover all plant and operator costs.
• Identified that Rail Infrastructure were not adhering to the Downer or any other recommended procurement policy / process of obtaining a minimum of three quotes before ordering required goods / services. The implementation of a panel quotation process lead to an immediate 20 – 30% drop in cost of machine movements which was the equivalent of a $20 to $50k savings per machine movement depending on the size of machine and distance to be moved.
• Initiated the investigation for a low-cost plant management system, to among other things, improve workforce planning, staff rostering, stores / spares management, utilisation monitoring, job costing, maintenance planning and linear asset management. Then obtained approval to proceed with the purchase and implementation of the selected plant management system.
• Restructured the Plant Department to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Managing a staff of three.  Responsible for providing commercial, strategic, financial, systems and project support to the Executive Team, Business Unit Managers and support staff.  Responsibilities include the investigation and analysis of the financial viability of plans, projects and investments.  Project management / support of short- to long-term operational and company wide projects.  Review of the current systems for potential and actual improvement.  Supplier negotiation.  The production and review of the operations and sales management reporting packs; including key performance indicators and commentaries to be included in the board reporting pack.  The production, review, analysis and presentation of the operations budget and budget presentation packs.  The production and review of Operational MRPII (Material Resource Planning) pack for the Supply Review Teams.  Managing the team responsible for providing the financial due diligence information for the sale of Forests.  The provision of modelling assistance as required.  Staff recruitment and training.

Achievements: 

• Implemented production and distribution variance analysis reports which allowed Forests to break out system mix, distance, customer mix, price and volume variances. This has given both the operations staff and executive a better understanding of the business and given them the information to make money-saving decisions in harvesting and distribution.
• Implemented new accounting and reporting processes for the Engineering and Estate Departments.
• Implemented a new consolidated management accounts pack for operations.
• Implemented budget packs, which include full variance analysis to the current year, for the Harvesting, Distribution, Engineering and Forestry.
• Implemented operational supply review reporting packs and balanced scorecards for both regional and national use. These have been produced at both branch and functional levels.
• Provided the operational data and matrix for the sale of one third of the Forests in October 2005.
• Provided the financial profitability models by forest, analysis and matrix for the sale of the balance of Carter Holt Harvey Forests in November 2006.

Responsibilities included providing analysis and feasibility studies for the potential diversification and sale of forestry land.  Researching alternative land uses that may apply to Carter Holt Harvey owned and leased forests.  Writing models for the possible conversion of forestry land into sustainable dairying units and lifestyle developments.  Analysing property developer proposals and making recommendations to the land sales team.  Designing and writing long term planning models to allow the management team to more accurately access the profitably of forestry verses other land uses.  Assessing and updating existing planning and cash flow models.  Provision of modelling assistance as required.