1. audit

  • Liquidity:
    • Overview of loans, bank balances, cash, receivables, and payables
    • 13-week liquidity plan
  • Cost analysis: materials, personnel, SGA
  • Loss-makers: products, customers, sites, regions
  • Market & competition: Initial assessment

2. survival

Liquidity Office

  • Weekly prioritization of expenditures
  • Individual check & clearance of payments
  • Ensure compliance through clear board instructions

Financial Breathing Space

  • Review of liquid or quickly liquidatable funds
  • Comprehensive assessment of all loans
  • Renegotiation of overdraft facilities

Immediate Liquidity Measures

  • Spending freeze for entire organization
  • Adjusted payment terms for customers & suppliers
  • Reduction of receivables & inventories

3. realignment

Structural costs

Organization and Leadership

  • Performance analysis of personnel costs
  • Leadership spans in relation to performance
  • Management targets & key performance indicators (KPI)

Other Operating Expenses

  • Reduction of spending limits for executives
  • Reduction of comfort level fleet & travel
  • Review of infrastructure (IT, rents)

Product Portfolio

  • Calculation of relevant contribution margins
  • Separation of volume vs. niche business
  • Reduction of complexity in portfolio

Value creation costs

Production Sites

  • Concentration/ relocation of sites
  • Reassessment of make-or-buy decisions
  • Evaluation of lead times, on-time delivery, quality

Purchasing

  • Purchasing volume vs. number of suppliers
  • Order process, approval, supplier selection
  • New tender, renegotiation suppliers

Sales and Marketing

  • Weaknesses of regions & channels
  • Customer margins vs. customer potentials
  • Reactivate lost customers, go online

Warehousing and Logistics

  • Inventories turnover
  • Order processing & logistics
  • New tender for packaging & transport

4. growth

Strategy and structure

Strategy and positioning

  • Business segment analysis (SWOT)
  • Identify performance leaders, niche products
  • Elaboration of core competencies

Target organization

  • Transparency on performance of functions
  • Identification of drivers of complexity
  • Sizing to target

Product-market-concept

  • Matching customers with product portfolio
  • Simplification of portfolio
  • Expansion of service offerings

Operational management

Pricing and payment conditions

  • Set prices based on margin analysis
  • Structured discount policy
  • Link discounts to customer margins

Distribution

  • Focus on customer potentials
  • Review price calculation (bottom-up)
  • Strengthen contract implementation

Management system (performance management)

  • Company-wide KPI system
  • Target-based budgeting and planning
  • Incentives for decision maker