Case Studies

Our Process

At Roedding Associates, we never want clients to feel consulting is being done to them, but instead, want them to collaborate and feel invested in making positive changes within their organization.

We tailor solutions to our clients’ needs; we generate actionable recommendations and plans.

Once we have assisted our clients in identifying the root cause of any issue and have collected the data we need, we consider their resources (both financial and human) and long-term goals to identify practical solutions, as there is no reason to recommend changes that a client is either incapable of making or uninterested in pursuing.

Even corporations that are both profitable and successful may not know if they are profitable on a customer-by-customer, project-by-project, or item-by-item basis. Questions such as "which projects do we make money on and which do we lose on?" and "which processes are inefficient?" are not uncommon. By not understanding profitability at the individual project level, some projects may actually be losing money but being offset by more other profitable ones. It is highly probable that profits are not being maximized.

Because of our diverse expertise and experience, RA is uniquely equipped to approach projects from a strategic, organization-wide, and process perspective, while also digging into the granularity of profitability, costs and pricing.

Case Study: Transformation

Engagement Outcomes

• Ability to identify and manage profitability by project. By enabling this, the organization now has control over its profit margins and ability to strategically set pricing.

• Pricing and costing tool developed and implemented for pricing/proposals and to enable cost allocation tool/alignment with the ERP. Tool includes expected hours, costs, price, gross margins.

• Reallocated responsibilities (Business Development, Directors and Project Managers) resulting in transparency, accountability, employees that are empowered, more efficient, effective and satisfied with their work.

• Processes redesigned to develop quotes, track and allocate costs, manage projects, track and manage departmental results–enhanced efficiency & effectiveness (leveraging technology and people).

Background

In this instance, an international corporation experiencing challenges in its finance department called RA in to help define the issues and identify their root cause. We reviewed the financial information the company was collecting for its projects and interviewed executives and staff in the finance, project management and business development departments to better understand their existing processes and identify issues. As we spoke to people, we took into account the client's goals and resources in order to identify a collaborative and positive solution for both the company and its team members.

In this case, RA was able to quickly suggest actionable solutions to add lasting value—not ones that would need to be tweaked in a year. A client's five-year strategy is just as important when crafting solutions as today's urgent pain points.

In this example, what RA found during the diagnostic was that there were a number of weaknesses in the client’s processes and data flows. At the root, the company did not have the necessary systems and processes in place to collect the required data to analyze its profitability by customer, let alone by specific project. RA helped to design processes and technology tools to identify and track the costs related to delivering services, as well the implementation of a costing and pricing tool for the business development department to generate price estimates when quoting projects for customers. This enabled the organization to better understand and be strategic about its pricing and margins.

Conclusion

Reallocation of responsibilities and redesign of processes and tools enabled the company to reduce duplication of effort and to enhance collaboration across departments, while increasing accountability relative to project pricing, management, and profitability. After being trained in the new tools and processes, the client’s team members were better equipped to seamlessly handle proposals and quotes, have visibility to details of project execution plans, all while enabling a feedback loop on profitability and staff resourcing by customer and project. Accounting for the projects was also enabled.

The changes enabled teams to become more accountable, have more insight and control over profitability, and improved job satisfaction because they had more efficient processes and tools, felt better able to manage themselves and more able to achieve positive results.

Through this project, RA was able to assist the client to strategically price its services through enhanced tools and redesigned processes that enabled more efficient and effective staff activity. The company is now able to gather the data required to obtain feedback on the profitability of its projects, as well as empower its team members with information to improve organizational profitability and performance.

Case Study: Operational Review

Roedding Associates conducted an operational review, including environmental scan of external comparators, and current state analysis [Governance, Operations (operating model, services, technology used, surcharges/mark ups), Human Resources/ Labour (organizational structure, union, management), Finance (funding model, budgets), metrics used].

This project reviewed pricing by project (including time & motion study, identification of direct/ indirect labour costs), and analysis of staff complement and responsibilities. Recommendations included: identification of a detailed HR model, job requirements for roles, development of an implementation / transition plan, identification of transition costs / revenues, and ongoing operating budgets.

Operational Review of a Department

• Conducted a review of a department, identified opportunities to enhance operations.

• Facilitated the development of a business plan.

• Conducted an analysis of alternate structures.

• Provided recommendations to enhance operational processes and organizational model.

Merger/Integration

• Facilitated the Integration Management Office.

• Provided insight and recommendations on aligning the processes and integration of operations, as well as facilitating the various workstreams (e.g. finance, IT, research, capital, operations, etc.).