The Ops Dept - Case Studies
Read on to discover how Karen has worked with other businesses.
Case Study One
Managing Ops
Salentis is a bid writing consultancy that delivers winning proposals for its clients across the globe.
It is an international company with three bases in the US/Americas, Australia/NZ and UK/Europe. There is a small core of 12 people spread across the three continents with the UK most recently set up at the beginning of 2018.
The issue
Richard, the GM for UK/Europe and COO for the larger business, was managing all aspects of the UK business, from business development, to delivering projects and all the surrounding support activities. In addition, being the COO placed other global demands on him.
It came to a head in the autumn of 2019 when he was trying to juggle the above whilst managing two projects concurrently. He started making mistakes in the accounts such as making duplicate payments to associates, not paying others, being distracted on client site and not being able to spend enough time on business development.
He was over-worked and hated making silly mistakes. He was tired and it was distracting him from what he loved about the business which is delivering top quality results for his clients.
The solution
Richard was looking for three outcomes:
- To solve his capacity issues and share the load
- To give the business greater redundancy so someone else could take over from him when he was unavailable
- To be able to run multiple projects concurrently without it being at the complete expense of his personal and family life
Why Karen
Karen was brought in for a number of reasons:
- She has experience of working in consultancies and has been a director of a small software testing consultancy so she understands how they work
- She has a great deal of operational experience having set up and run systems and processes for consulting businesses
- She could be trusted to get on with a range of activities without having to be guided
- She’s an experienced business owner who has worked with a number of businesses and has valuable business insight to add to the business that goes beyond operations
The outcome
- Karen has brought order, process, discipline and challenge to Salentis UK
- She manages all operational aspects of client projects (from onboarding associates, tracking the projects to invoicing) leaving Richard free to concentrate on delivery and business development
- She is a trusted member of the team and that has allowed Richard to get back his life and knowing that everything is ticking along without him when he’s away
- Salentis UK now has the capacity to deal with more business and generate greater turnover
- She brought a significant amount of great professional knowledge that went beyond operations and has been an excellent sounding board and who has challenged the status quo to improve our business.
- She has provided a huge amount of input into marketing which has resulted in a rebrand of the business, a change in marketing comms and started the business on the road to completely revamping their website.
- Richard has gained back 40 hours a month which has enabled him to concentrate on strategic initiatives such as Cyber Security and business development
Case Study Two
Setting Up Ops
Testing4Finance was an independent software testing consultancy providing testing solutions into the banking industry. It was established in 2010 and sold at the end of 2012.
The issue
The three original founders had vast experience in delivery and business development but no operational experience. Too much time was being spent in trying to set up all the back office functions when they needed to be getting new business.
The solution
Karen was brought on board as the Operations and Marketing director.
Having worked with her before at a large international testing consultancy the other directors were familiar with her experience. She had been instrumental in helping the larger business grow from a 10 consultant business to one that grew to 150 consultants before being sold.
- She took over all the operational aspects of the business
- She organised three office moves
- She set up all the back office systems to
- Find, recruit and onboard new associates
- Manage project onboarding of associates
- Implemented a timesheet system to track associates time on projects
- Implemented a recruitment system to manage and track associates
- Managed the month end client invoicing process
- Supported the delivery team with client bids
- Created all the marketing collateral including the build of a new website
- Recruited back office support as the business grew
The outcome
With Karen’s support the team was able to grow the business from 0 consultants to having 30 billable consultants within 18 months.
Case Study Three
Business growth through operational support and coaching
CC Electrics provides electrical maintenance services for retirement living and care homes. It was set up by Carl in 2014 when he offered the usual range of domestic and commercial electrical services.
The key USP and ‘why’ for CC Electrics is to provide top notch service with a smile. It drives everything they do, from how they deliver to how they recruit and run their back-office functions. The customers, both the scheme managers and residents, absolutely love Carl and his team.
The issues
Typical of the small business owner Carl was:
- Juggling too many balls – doing everything from quotes to invoicing to being on the tools
- Offering too many services and not enjoying certain aspects of what he was doing
- Couldn’t grow
- Was unsure what steps he needed to take to grow his business but was hugely ambitious
- Worked constantly with little to no free time
Why Karen
We met networking in late 2014 and started working together. But it was put on hold because the time wasn’t right for Carl who decided he was going to continue to operate as a one-man band for the time being.
He got back in touch in 2019 ready to take the next steps to grow his business.
What we did
- Refocused his business and niched to providing maintenance services for retirement and assisted living homes
- Redesigned and rewrote his website to provide the focus
- Developed his key why – ‘Customer Excellence’ which drives how he and his team work and deliver to their customers
- Documented processes and procedures to streamline the business and to allow him to outsource the work to others
- Implemented additional software to support the business – Tradify and Capsule
- Ran a marketing campaign to a housing group resulting in an upswing in schemes managed (a campaign process that can be switched on and off as necessary)
- Recruited for new engineers and an office manager
The results
- Turnover increased by 500%
- VAT registered
- 4 additional team members
- Carl has his evenings back and has been able to take holidays safe in the knowledge that his business is running without him
- Plans for world domination! Carl’s vision for the future is to be the Pimlico Plumbers of electrical maintenance for the retirement sector
None of this would have been possible without Carl’s unwavering dedication to taking the actions and his determination to succeed.
