Management Consulting

Sustainable Operations Management provides management consulting services to small to medium business in order to assist them to achieve Sustainable Business Operations in a global market. We specialise in key areas to help you improve your business and achieve your short, medium and long term objectives. We work with you to further develop your business, improve profitability, manage operational issues and manage risk to make sure that your business is sustained for the long term.

At Sustainable Operations Management, we are experts in the fundamental business pillars that are the foundation of your business such as;

• Strategy - Corporate level and business level.
• Planning - Business plans, operational plans, feasibility studies and budgets.
• Systems - Financial measurement & reporting, KPI Scorecards, Production / inventory control, people management, quality & environmental, etc.
• Risk - Identification, classification & management

Strategy

We work with you and your senior management team to review your existing strategy or develop one that will put your business on the path to achiieving your Vision. If you have already defined your strategy, we apply our knowledge of strategy at the corporate level as well as the business level to ensure you are on the right track. We facilitate strategic review sessions to drill down into your strategic process and identify areas of opportunity or work through inconsistencies. We challenge you in order to confirm that your existing strategy is in fact going to take you where you want to go.

If you haven't yet developed or defined your business strategy, we work through the process with you from the beginning, providing the benefit of our knowledge and expertise. We will help you to devise a strategy that will enable your business to produce above average returns and provide you with a sustainable competitive advantage in your industry.

We use our structured process to help you fill in the blanks so you don't have to have a Masters degree or intimate knowledge of the fundamentals of strategy.

Planning

They say that "failure to plan is a plan to fail". Many SME's do not have even the most basic plans in place to help them achieve their objectives. So, without a plan, how can you achieve what it is that you set out to do? A fair question but one that is generally put in the "too hard basket".

We work with you to develop comprehensive business plans that include product / service analysis, segmentation and customer analysis, competitor analysis and positioning and forecasts and budgets. We take you through the process step by step, all you do is provide the information. If you do not have all the answers, we will assist you by questioning, exploring or research. We then take the information and transform it into a comprehensive business plan that is used as a reference document to drive your business. And, if you need to access capital for example, you have the document that every bank will require in order to provide you with credit.

If you're thinking of starting a new business or expanding an existing one, we can help you to perform a feasibility study to confirm that it will be successful. Don't leave it to chance, most businesses fail within the first 5 years purely because of a lack of proper planning and preparation. Again, we take you through the process step by step, challenging you and encouraging you to justify every assumption. We act as a sounding board so you can bounce ideas off us and see things from another perspective.

Systems

Having sound systems in place is absolutely essential if your business is going to be sustainable in this ever increasing global market. Systems are at the core of every successful business because they ensure desired outcomes are achieved, without management intervention. Systems control who does what and how. They monitor performance and assist with the management of the business and its resources.

Financial measurement & reporting systems are critical to monitor the health of the business in terms of profitability, cash flow, sales revenues and expenditure. Actions can be developed as a result of variance analysis on sales, cost to produce and distribution when good financial systems are in place and results are reported. Financial reporting is also a statutory requirement and often required by boards of directors.

KPI scorecards (or balanced scorecards) act as a dashboard for your business, summarising performance in key areas. Often able to be presented on a single page, scorecards provide a snapshot for a point in time and illustrate performance against pre-determined targets. Traffic light systems are often used in scorecards that highlight good performance as green, bad as red and orange in between.

If you are a manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor, good control of your manufacturing / distribution costs and inventory can be the difference between business success and total failure. Production control systems incorporate production scheduling, bills of materials, routings, standard costs and process control. Manufacturing is difficult enough without making it harder with uncontrolled processes and costs. Inventory control systems are a given if you sell or distribute purchased goods. From warehouse management to stock control to valuation, a sizeable inventory can be a nightmare to manage without a system to control material movements, costs etc. We help you identify critical areas and implement a cost effective solution that meets your needs now and has the capacity to grow as you do. We can also help you to assess and make a decision on the type of computer system if required.

Believe it or not, people are managed through systems as well. And if they are not, you'll probably find that they don't perform to their potential, leave or worse - don't perform to their potential and don't leave! Managing people well is not just about paying them according to their Collective Agreement and hoping that they stay with your business. Managing people, especially generation X and Y is a complex process that requires a real understanding of what makes people 'tick' and drives their behaviour. These are essential skills if you are to extract the best possible performance from them. A good people management system incorporates employment contracts, position descriptions, KPI's, performance management systems, reward programs and career paths if you wish to attract and retain the best people on offer. Anything short of this and you are probably turning over too many people and spending too much on recruitment, induction and training. We have templates, systems and documentation that will assist you to build a great management system that will help you extract the best from each and every employee.

If you want to deal with Government departments or big corporates you'll have to have either a quality or environmental system in place, or in some instances, both. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have an expensive system that buries you in paperwork. The process of documenting what is done and how is often sufficient. And, you'll be surprised how beneficial it is to go through the process of documenting processes in your business. Then, you just write down those company policies that are often very well known, just not documented. We take you through the process of identifying the necessary areas to be documented and provide assistance with implementation. It's that easy!

Risk

Risks are present in every business and they need to be either eliminated or carefully managed to make sure business objectives are achieved. So, if it's that simple, why do the majority of SME's leave risk management to the corporate world? Because they think it is a black hole that can never be filled. This is not the case. With a basic understanding, risk can easily be identified, classified and managed to help you sleep at night.

There are three types of risk - opportunity risk, hazard risk and unknown risk. They apply to every area of your business, including financial, commercial, compliance, strategic, organisational, operational, security and technological. Any event that could lead to business objectives not being achieved is called a risk and requires management.

The risk management process requires risks to be identified, classified / prioritised and addressed. When this is done, what you have is sustainable business practices. For your business to be sustainable, you also need to monitor and review your risks and plans to address them.

We have a structured risk management process that we use to help you manage risk in your business. We work with you to develop a risk management plan that would impress any corporate entity - without the cost.

Contact us now to discover the many ways one of our consultants can help your business!

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