Diaries

Conducted training for employees of the client so they could take over the MOS tool updates during the balance of the period until the IT solution is developed.

The Accunomics team assembled at the client site today. Reviewed our objectives, deliverables, workstreams, and the client’s business. Attended presentations from the client. The team went out to a drinking dinner (!) with the entire client management team (traditional Chinese/Korean/Japanese way of getting to know each other) – great fun, although we tried our best […]

After we’ve built out an initial cut of the model, it’s time to focus on client input and validation. This will involve socializing the profitability model with key stakeholders on the client team, collecting feedback and revising the model accordingly.

Conducted interviews with client leadership. Varying levels of support for the work we’re about to do, making for some challenges we’ll need to address and overcome. Consulting is never straightforward and this engagement will not be.

It’s time for our kick-off meeting with the validation team. After reviewing the profitability modeling process with everyone, we begin to demonstrate the capabilities of the model. The client seems impressed at the detailed visibility that the model provides. They’re able to select specific sites, customers and products and view the associated P&L right down […]

We’re going to be analyzing the entire business, including marketing, pricing, discounting, contracting, as well as operating expenses and transportation. Our first step was to establish a profitability model and tie it to their historical financials as well as begin the analysis of their overall performance. The initial analysis seems pretty clear: operating expenses are […]

We meet individually with each member of the validation team to gather feedback. Each team member represents a different business area and provides specific insight into the minutia of his or her operations. We learn of more one-off adjustments that we’ll need to make in order to improve the accuracy of the model.

Preparing for our first update. This includes a review of their financial performance – the overview, which reviews financials they already generally know, and some analyses from the profit model, which is already telling us things the client doesn’t really know, such as at least 50% of their customers are either unprofitable or only marginally […]

One of the most intensely debated areas is the methodology by which overhead costs are allocated down the transaction level. Our assessment-grade models primarily utilized transaction/volume based allocation rules; something that the client was not entirely sold on. This week, we incorporate the work of the Accunomics team focused on OPEX reduction. They provide us […]

Delivered the first update – we’re slowly gaining respect from client management as they can see we’re providing information about their business they haven’t had before. We’re now on to our next step – to demonstrate that greater rigor and transparency in pricing and financials will improve profits.