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OUR PORTFOLIO
Here are some of our client projects that we have been involved with over the past few years.
Nerum Pharmaceuticals AG is a pharmaceutical start-up based in Switzerland. We focus on innovation ingredients and products with a pipeline that spans multiple therapy areas in the phyto-pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical space. We work in close collaboration with consumer product companies to bring new functionalities and therapeutic benefits to their final products. We joined Nerum as a senior advisor and head of business development for the launch. Visit Nerum Pharmaceuticals at www.nerumpharma.com
Syngenta is a $11b global agribusiness with offices in 40+ countries. The vision for the programme was to introduce an SAP module called FSCM (Financial Supply Chain Module). Once implemented, it changes the customer credit limit management locally and automates the receivables collection processes. Most importantly, the company would have a global view by country of outstanding receivables and DSO (Days of Sales Outstanding) and would be able to work with the country to reduce DSO overall.
A pilot implementation was started for two smaller countries to test the concept and implementation processes. Country teams were trained on new processes and a focused organization design team. The project evaluated the ability and readiness to embed the change in processes on the local roles. Both teams drove mitigation strategies to make the transition easier.
Following the successful pilot, the remaining countries were divided into implementation groups and the next 3-years were planned to complete the rollout. A program office was created with a minimum staff to prepare and adjust group timing. The program reported to senior stakeholders in the company.
As the programme proceeded, there were generally 1-3 groups of implementation projects in flight at the same time. At the end of the three-year period, the final projects were winding down, the programme office was disbanded, and the support of the platform was successfully handed over to process support within the company.
An $11b global agribusiness with offices in 40+ countries. It had been acquiring companies to form a second division from the chemical division over the past 20+ years. Each division had its own legal identity, systems, offices, sales, finance and accounting in 25+ countries. All of which rolled up to the group for consolidation.
One of the large initiatives identified was to merge the two divisions to reduce the overall number of offices, accounting and streamline tax reporting in local country.
Each country had a different level of complexity depending on local legal, employee and tax regulations. Some countries had large differences between divisions in employee salaries or insurance benefits. For the costliest, we determined that the cost was too expensive to merge the divisions, given the expected benefits. A target set of countries were set.
The projects started with a deep dive with the countries to determine when best to change entities. This mostly corresponded with year-end accounting close.
The project activities were standardized and started with the legal merge within the country. Once approved by the local government, Tax, VAT and accounting alignment procedures could be drawn. If the country required employee contract changes or salary and benefit harmonisation, negotiations and consultations were held with local unions. On the go-live weekend, the changes were implemented.
After a 100-day deep dive into the existing company, including employee interviews and end-to-end operations review, we found a company that was operating with some areas to improve in the short term.
New product development was trickier as it was impossible to move down the value chain towards the existing customers. After a strategic review of potential options, the best potential was to bring manufacturing of certain ingredients in-house that were compatible with existing equipment. No major capital expense was required. This allowed us to reduce costs and bring another product line to sell to existing customers. Sales and margins increased.
The group that owned Flavors asked that we explore strategic options for the company (Sell, Buy and merge with a competitor, or continue to invest). We identified competitors ready to sell, but the complexities of the merge meant that we would lose the core team at Flavors from Florida. This represented a large risk to future operations.
The board agreed that we continue to drive efficiency and EBIT improvements and let the business to continue to operate. After we disengaged, the company was sold four years later to a competitor in the Midwest US.
Zumanna was founded by Paul Rancatore to respond to an opportunity that he saw to provide gluten free, healthy snack bars that would target school cafeterias initially. The concept of Zumanna was a lifestyle brand promoting healthy eating, exercise and well-being. Paul asked us to join the advisory board to help move through the development and marketing efforts.
He and his team developed recipes in his kitchen for a freshly-baked, ready to eat product. Early customer tests were positive. However, in order to achieve a wrapped, ready-to-eat product for school distribution, it needed to be preserved for a 20-day shelf life. For the team at Zumanna, the very thought of a preserved product was not consistent with the company values.
The first pivot was to think about the target customer, now expanding past students in school cafeterias to health-conscience shoppers. Another way forward was to create a ready-to-bake version of Zumanna that would be sold frozen and then baked in bar format for 10 minutes. While the focus groups revealed people still like the final product, time-conscience consumers still preferred a ready-to-eat product.
The second pivot came while Paul was testing freshly-baked product with hotel chefs to get their opinion on the product. They explained that they would rather take the base product and build their own recipes around it. So was born the Zumanna « ready-to-mix ». It was the same gluten-free product with the natural flavouring removed and allowed chefs to use the base product with their own natural flavouring and ingredients. For consumers, it was now possible that a set of recipes could grow up around the ready-to-mix product, and be personalised to taste. The ready-to-mix has appeared in a major grocery chain in the US.
We joined a team lead by an industry insider to investigate starting an airline in the continental US to significantly improve the travel experience for travellers on long-haul flights in the US. After benchmarking the industry leaders, we created a model based on load factors and plane characteristics, available leases and operation costs. The LOPA (Layout Of Passenger Accommodation) was important to the fulfilling the flying experience to create a superior offer in the market.
What we found was that smaller planes could not generate the revenues needed to break even after two years. The model did work for large planes (400+ seats), provided we were able to maintain 60% load factors. The RASM (Revenue per Available Seat Mile) and CASM (Cost per Available Seat Mile) were in line with industry norms… Breakeven was achievable after two to three years. Seat pricing to travellers were on par or less than stable competitors.
The remaining functional areas (reservations, customer payments, operations and flight personnel) were detailed for the financials for an investor presentation.
One innovation that is considered for the NewCo is implementing a subscription model that allows the subscriber to enjoy benefits on-board as well as preferred ticket pricing. This also builds stickiness to the airline and the routes it flies.
As with many airline start-ups, the initial cash outlay is enormous for leasing, operations, personnel and maintenance. We are currently talking to investors to fund the first phase of the company.
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