CASE STUDIES

In the five years I spent at CIL Strategy (formerly Management) consultants, I helped guide the business from a turnover of £10m to in excess of £30m, while at the same time improving profit margins, optimising cashflow and transforming real-time reporting. 

The first quantum leap on this journey was the successful selection and adoption of a PSA system (a project accounting tool) which I led. This helped the business moved from manual project financial reporting, to instantaneous self-serve management information. It transformed invoicing from a 1hr central and manual process, to a five-minute production and quality review cycle. This resulted in increased recoveries from 80% to 100%, and a reduction of over 30 debtor days.

Further gains were found through integrated reporting and KPI production, producing weekly "heartbeat" style reports across sales, marketing, resourcing, P&L, and even wellbeing. This helped the business accelerate it's decision making, grow sales and even sustain profits while reducing worker hours from 60-70 to 40-50. 

These changes now allowed for scale, and this helped the business confidently expand to the US, followed by Germany and France. 

Sebastian Chambers, CEO says:

"Paul and I worked together when I was the managing director at CIL Management Consultants.  He has a strong all rounder capability in finance from reporting, to bringing in new systems and commercial decision making.  We grew rapidly and Paul played a key part” 

Jack is a fairly typical CEO - exceptionally passionate about his business, converting beautiful cars of times past into modern, comfortable electric icons. As Silent Classics has grown, so has Jack's need to work more "on the business" and less "in the business", meaning more time on admin, finance, sales and other "non-core" activities.

I started working with Jack at a point where all of the above was becoming stressful, cash flow was unpredictable, and performance was somewhat volatile. We started to released this stress by looking at a 6-month cashflow, with a particular focus on the 13-week outlook. We identified cash "opportunities" in this exercise and in doing so were able to remove the stress from short-term cash uncertainty. 

We then looked at the commercial opportunities were available, and how well these were made clear to potential customers. We were able to simplify the offering into a product, while also establishing a favourable payment plan, and this has been well received with a swift doubling of customers.  

Jack Kerridge, CEO

"Paul took a look over my numbers and very immediately turned his attention to my sales channels. He helped me realise better ways to market my services, differing pricing options we could offer, and how best to respond to the inbound attention we were receiving. This has helped me grow my pipeline of work, and drive the business on. We have also worked very closely on our cash forecast, and this has helped to significantly reduce my stress levels and start planning for the future"

Frome is known for its small independent shops, but that does not always limit the ambition of the founder. Dan runs a small hardware store in the town selling not only products he has personally vetted, but also those that he has passionately built and developed himself.

Retail can be a challenge even in a thriving town such as Frome, and Dan was struggling to know how to extend his borders beyond the shop alone.

I worked through Dan's transactional records, and helped him understand the profit margins across his varied product lines, which products were selling well, and where his viable growth opportunities were. 

This helped Dan establish which products to more heavily market and champion via his website, and establish a strong understanding of the success of his shop. Within a year Dan was able to upgrade to a larger shop location on a more prominent site. Later he was able to step away from the day-to-day shop running, and return to his passion of making things.

Dan Gallally - Founder

"Paul helped me make sense of my business finances at a time when I really needed clarity. We sell a wide range of products, and he was able to sift through our sales and break things down in a way that showed me clearly which areas were most profitable and which sales channels were worth focusing on. He presented everything in a simple, straightforward way that made the numbers much less intimidating, and it gave me a real sense of direction. It was incredibly useful and helped me make better decisions about where to put my energy. I definitely recommend working with him." 

Lottie is another successful small business owner in Frome. Setting up her own business during Covid, Lottie has been able to move her vintage selling business from online, to market stalls and now into a local shop.

As the growth journey has developed, so has the underlying cost base and complexities of running a business. I have helped Lottie in understanding her product margins and most profitable sales channels - helping Lottie to hone her craft.

We also worked on a cashflow forecast to ensure that investment decisions made today don't impact her ability to pay her bills in the future. This clarity has helped to relieve Lottie's stress levels and improve her planning.

Vintage by Lottie May - Founder

"Paul has helped me greatly understand my financials and has put in places structures for me to capture my monthly profitability, stock levels and cashflow values. This has helped me to make decisions that have scale my business"

I worked with John over a number of years who already had a strong knowledge of his product margins and the complexities around manufacturing this healthy food product. 

However, with sales through large retail, independents, distributors, B2C direct and B2C online, John had little to no visibility of his monthly sales, and whether the company was growing or not.

I worked on gathering these insights from the various channels, and turned this into reliable management information from which to act. This helped Purfeed grow from a turnover of £1m per annum towards £2m. 

John Caulder - former-CEO 

"Paul has helped me quickly understand the profit margins on the products that we sell, and through drawing numbers from a range of sources helped to identify which lines were performing the best. He worked closely with my team in order to look at ways in which to automated the collection of our sales data, through the various channels that we have, and helped us to create powerful reporting to drive our business forward. 

Paul's help is always deliver with a smile, and he is a welcome extended member of our team"