Performance Management - from success to excellence

Sales activation
Even innovative medium-sized companies are confronted with increasing predatory competition, presenting  ever more comparable products and services. Sales strategy and organization are becoming important success factors. Omni-channel approaches, the introduction of CRM systems or the reduction of overhead costs are just some of the considerations necessary to enhance sales productivity. In this endeavour we tackle typical questions: How high is the market utilization in the individual areas? Does the mix between field sales, sales partners and digital channels fit? Which functions are assigned to key account management? How do product management and order center interact with sales? We offer proven analytical tools and industry benchmarks to build the groundwork for a sustainable strategy, offering support throughout its execution. 

Optimizing the product range
Experience shows that in the medium-sized capital goods industry, more than a quarter of the products and services are in deficit below full cost. This is due not only to a lack of transparency in costing, but also to overly complex designs and processes. In the project business, the causes can often be traced back to weak project management. Our approach begins with analyzing the service portfolio in terms of turnover, contribution margins, and order structures. Benchmarks with competitor products and customer feedback allow an assessment of marketability. Typical starting points are optimal pricing, value-based optimization, cost-efficient processes, or delisting. 

Service strategy
Despite acknowledged challenges - the potentials in service often remain unused. For example, in the mechanical and plant engineering sector, the average service ratio is around 17%, while best-practice companies achieve over 30% for repairs, spare parts, retrofitting, operation and increasingly IT-based services. Establishing a powerful service organization ("Service 4.0") is one of the most profitable measures of our performance management program. 

Pricing
Pricing represents one of the most powerful levers to increase contribution margins and drive sales. We offer a range of consulting services tailored to SMEs, including a review of costing schemes, pricing and conditions systems and underlying processes. With our in-depth industry knowledge, we help you develop and consistently enforce marketable pricing structures in different product segments and distribution channels. 

Reducing material costs
In times of constantly rising raw material prices, the reduction of material costs is becoming increasingly important. Direct material costs represent the largest share of costs in the manufacturing industry and thus constitute an important lever for savings. Strategies to achieve this include consistent best-cost sourcing, bundling of product groups and suppliers and a readjustment of delivery conditions. Material efficiency can also be improved by reducing waste and optimizing value analysis. Medium-sized companies often lack the resources to identify further savings opportunities beyond their day-to-day business. With our extensive practical experience and proven tools, we ensure sustainable savings in material costs.

Reducing workforce costs
Confronted with increasing market volatility and uncertainty, companies must be able to flexibly respond to fluctuations in workload. Fierce competition, especially from China, is forcing small and medium-sized enterprises to make significant productivity leaps and use best-cost options. Structural measures such as outsourcing parts of operations, reducing overheads or the digitalization of processes can achieve sustainable savings, usually flanked by agreed flexibility instruments (e.g. short-time work). We have many years of experience in drawing up social plans, negotiating with employee representatives and concluding collective restructuring agreements. In close cooperation with lawyers specializing in labor law, we use transfer companies or actively implement voluntary programs. 

Reduction of miscellaneous operating costs
Following best practice solutions, we scrutinize your existing processes and help you to improve them. Our focus is on optimizing organizational structures, evaluating locations, and changing the depth of value creation. We use a proven set of tools (e.g., functional analyses, make-or-buy analyses, 5S, value stream analyses). In the areas of operations and supply chain management, we have many years of practical experience and can thus - also in an interim capacity - quickly and effectively raise potential. 

Operational excellence
Even if potentials in material costs usually lay behind other cost types, it is worth taking a critical look at them. With hard cost controlling, quick effects can usually be realized, which are rounded off by regular re-tendering and renegotiation. Structural measures within the framework of outsourcing or shared service centers require strategic preliminary considerations but can lead to significant savings.

­​​​​​​Introducing planning and key figure systems
To sustainably enhance a company’s, selected strategies must be planned, implemented, and monitored consistently. We support you in developing, visualizing, and structuring an integrated planning system using the LucaNet software. All production and financing relationships are mapped at company level and consolidated. Scenarios can be modelled flexibly and interactively. The results are  a target-oriented basis for decision-making, accelerated decision-making processes and high planning quality. We also have extensive expertise in the development of operational key figure systems - here we use leading data intelligence systems such as PowerBI or Tableau and adapt them to individual customer requirements. 

Reduction of working capital
When the company facese a crisis, stabilizing and improving the liquidity situation becomes a top priority. But liquidity bottlenecks can also build up during growth phases. Effective working capital management is essential to free up liquid funds from assets in the short term. Within the framework of working capital management, major weaknesses along the entire value chain can be identified and eliminated by means of immediate measures. Significant optimization potentials arise primarily in the warehouse and intermediate storage structures, throughput times, dispositions, minimum inventories, the layout as well as in the accounts receivable and accounts payable range. In addition, we are introducing lean principles such as Kanban (changeover from push to pull organization). 

Raising capital
Should additional capital be required as part of a restructuring or performance management program, our "Corporate Finance/M&A" expert team  has an efficient network of national and international financing partners at its disposal.

Digitalization
Are my services still relevant today and in the future? Which competitors are already in the market with competing offers or are entering into direct competition with new, disruptive business models? Which technologies will change my business? With the help of our digitalization check, we assess the impact on the industry, the range of services and the value creation of our clients. We consider existing technical and organizational requirements and compare them with best practice approaches. On this basis, we develop a roadmap with concrete action plans for sustainable competitive advantages in the digital future.

Strategy development
Strategy is not an end in itself but must lead to measurable effects in market position, earnings and cash flow. Investments in growth should be prioritized and clearly quantifiable. Innovation, differentiation, and cost leadership are classic starting points that only work, if they are successfully translated into superior processes. As part of our strategy audit, we delve deeply into the future challenges of  your industry and identify growth options for your company. Based on the available resources, we jointly develop a clear roadmap for business areas, regions, and functions.

New businesses
If the limits of growth in the existing business have been reached or the existing core business is threatened by disruptive tendencies, the question of building new businesses arises at the latest. In SME practice, a resource-based approach has proven successful, which puts the financial capabilities and the culture of the company in the forefront. Examples of this includes diversification from the production of envelopes to light packaging or fuel filters to water technology. bachert&partner has many years of practical experience in  focused sectors and methods for the systematic generation of business ideas.