SERVICES

Melvin Feller Business Group exists to help organizations and individuals realize their vision by helping to realize theirs. In our relationship with clients, we impart and fit best practices to their unique circumstances and environment.

Melvin Feller Business Group ensures organizations have a sound, executable plan; hire, coach and engage the right people; develop departments and teams that work together collaboratively and productively; and create systems and processes that support rather than hinder their work and investing.

Planning

No great plan was born without careful thought. That’s why the process of planning is an important vehicle for setting priorities, making investment decisions, and laying out growth plans. But for many companies and individuals, the activity has not been fully used and implemented properly. As a result, many plans end up as shelf decorations or hard-to-find files in hard drives.

In theory, strategic planning should foster powerful examinations and discussions; but when the process is rigidly structured, and the documents are dense with data, the discussion can be affected or constrained. To overcome this, it’s important to ask tough questions when the plans are presented – and to do this in a way that can lead to unscripted answers that will enrich the thinking and increase everyone’s level of confidence in moving forward. A few that the Melvin Feller Business Group has heard include: “What are the top 2 or 3 things that must go right for this strategy to work?” “If we pursue this strategy, what are we deciding not to do?” and “What specific capabilities will we need to develop in order for this plan to succeed?”

The planning process is a significant part of most organizations and individuals operating rhythm. The leadership challenge, however, is to make sure that it’s more than just a corporate exercise – or plan that is not utilized or implemented.

Strategy

In order to best determine the future direction of your business, it helps to understand where you are positioned in the market. Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats and in particular the main causes therein - are key learning skills all businesses can use to evolve.

A critical assessment of the current and historical performance of your business and factors impacting it may assist with gaining a better understanding and help shape direction.

Important steps in understanding past performance and formulating and monitoring strategy may include:

Historical analysis to determine key drivers of business and set key performance indicators (KPI’s);

Implementation of management information systems to facilitate the extraction of KPI’s and other important information; and

Monitoring KPI’s to track performance.

Sometimes taking the leap of faith to move away from doing things the way they have always been done and implementing change is a difficult hurdle for management or business owners to overcome. In this instance obtaining external assistance from the Melvin Feller Business Group will greatly assist you in this area.

Gaining an analytical understanding of where your business is positioned in the market, aids you in determining the direction in which your business should head in order to achieve desired objectives. This is where a detailed business strategy document may assist. A business strategy outlines the tactics, methods and pathways employed by a business to achieve future goals.

So, what are the options and alternatives to consider for your business? Doing nothing should never be an option. Contacting the Melvin Feller Business Group to look at your options is greatly advised.

An effective business strategy should clearly identify where your business is headed and create cohesion within an organization to achieve the target goals. It should not only define the destination but also set out the best route and provide the tools with which to measure progress along the way. It is critical to continually assess progress and if warranted, realign your strategy and your business.

Results

In a well-run organization, leaders and entrepreneurs manage by the numbers. They measure and monitor business performance to improve results, and to guide their problem-solving and decision-making. These numbers can be expressed as leading indicators (real-time) or lagging indicators (historical). Melvin Feller Business Group implements and follows a few key numbers drive the success of every company—including yours!

Performance measures are often established using a tool called the Balanced Scorecard. These measures reflect a company’s current strategy and goals. Below are some commonly used measures within the four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard. Focus on the few numbers that matter most to you, and ignore the rest (unless they later become important).

Financial Measures

Sales or Revenue

Sales growth

Gross Margin or Profit

Contribution Margin

Profit Margin

Profit or revenue per employee

Return on Investment (ROI)

Dividends

Cash flow

Days in A/R (e.g., average of 75 days for collection of money)

Days Held in Inventory (e.g., 90 days of stock on-hand)

Inventory Turnover Ratio (e.g., four inventory turns per year)

Current Ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities)

Quick Ratio (current assets minus inventory, divided by current liabilities)

Debt to Equity

Customer Measures

Customer satisfaction

Customer retention/loyalty/referrals

Customer complaints/customers lost

Product return rates

Response time per customer request

Customer lifetime value

Customer acquisition rate

Number of customers

Annual sales per customer/Re-order rate

Average purchase per customer

Win rate (sales closed/contracts signed)

Marketing cost as a percentage of sales

Number of ads placed/response rate/proposals made

Sales volume/per channel/per square-foot of space

Frequency of sales transactions/mean-time between sales

Average customer size

Customers per employee

Customer service expense per customer

Process Measures

Average cost per transaction

On-time delivery/response time to customer requests

Average lead-time to ship product

Inventory turnover

Labor utilization and effectiveness rates

Defect percentage/Rework

Break-even point

Cycle time

Warranty claims

Waste reduction

Space utilization

Frequency of returned purchases

Downtime

Employee Learning and Growth Measures

Employees with advanced degrees/participation in professional or trade associations

Training investment per employee

Average years of service

Number of cross-trained employees

Absenteeism

Employee turnover rate

Employee satisfaction

Report-able accidents/Lost-time accidents

Employee productivity

Training hours/certifications/leadership development

Personal goal achievement

Timely completion of performance appraisals

Financial Ratios

The above list will get you thinking about various ways to look at your business and measure performance. For more information, google the less-familiar terms you are interested in.

Many of the financial measures listed are lagging indicators known as business or financial ratios. They are often looked at by investors or bankers.

Get everyone in your company behind the few critical numbers that drive your business strategy and goals. People should know every day how they are measuring-up. Frequent feedback is a powerful motivating tool.