Case Studies
The following Case Studies and Testimonials illustrate the range and breadth of our 130 years tangible and
relevant frontline business experience, with some direct feedback from previous clients and colleagues.
We are happy to expand on this with you and provide additional information on how we work with people
and the added value we bring.
Leadership
Eastern Sugar was a JV group, owned by Tate & Lyle PLC & St. Louis Sucre (owned by Sudzucker AG). Engaged for 15 months on an interim CEO basis to bring activity to international levels with sales & costs under control in each of its 3 national markets. Reviewed, set up & implemented country business plans; strengthened the senior management team & dealt with bad practice. Gained a €12M equity injection, €36M new bank facilities & €13M old debt settled for €3M. The Slovak business achieved 21% RONA, Hungary 9% RONA & the Czech business was brought to breakeven from a €1.5M per month loss. Took the Czech government to international tribunal & won (€100M claim).
Strategic Thinking
Sabre Technology are a Hull-based ‘design for manufacture’, product development, trouble-shooting & system testing business with a client base ranging across sectors and including FTSE 100 companies. 7C Consociation were engaged to support the company’s strategy development and business planning to de-risk an extended period of 100%+ rapid growth.. The intervention was designed and delivered over 3 months, providing challenging and diverse thinking to produce both long term (10-year goal) and a detailed ‘step 1’ 3-year plan. Outputs include recruitment planning and business ‘balancing’ activity.
Business Analysis
Brought in as Chair of LEAD Scotland and instigated a review of the decisions making processes to identify if there were any gaps between the Board and the Board Committees. These committees are responsible for Finances, Strategy and Engagement. The resultant reviewed identified that there was a need for a Governance Committee which is now responsible for ensuring adherence to legislation, succession and contingency planning and internal process document reviews. The Governance Committee is also authorised by the Board to review Lead’s governance structure and make recommendations to the Board and take any action necessary to enable the Committee to fulfil its responsibilities.
Change Management
The banking industry had decided that the Cheque Guarantee Scheme would be withdrawn, and that Cheque Guarantee Cards would no longer be issued. Engaged as the project manager of the Royal Bank of Scotland Change Team which consulted with the different IT teams to identify which systems triggered generation of the cards and where the information was sent. Also worked with the card provider to redesign the bank cards to remove the Cheque Card Guarantee symbol from the cards. Organised the communication to 12m customers in conjunction with Marketing and Legal to ensure that customers were informed of the change. The result was that customers were informed of the new process and all new cards issued to the 12m customers no longer had the Cheque Card Guarantee Symbol.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Following a major acquisition in the international transportation sector, the acquiring company (an S&P 100 business) had a key requirement to transition all customer and operational IT systems from legacy to Corporate standard solutions. This involved the complete alignment of all business processes and functionality from initial customer account number set up through to final invoicing. As responsible Director this required the co-ordination of multiple teams across all functions, the development of a complex implementation plan as well as full internal and external communications up to Board level. The project was delivered with no loss of revenue (18,000 customer systems migrated) or operational impact (all UK domestic locations) and the complete retirement of the acquired legacy systems.
People Development
TGI was the privatised Romanian tyre industry, with an international investment bank as backer. The business needed a completely fresh management approach and was engaged to recover the 6000 employees, $0.5BN fixed assets business & sell same. Built a dynamic, young, diverse local management team with which we devised a cash generation plan based on hard currency sales & recovered a $30M balance sheet ‘hole’. At the same time, we improved operating quality (from 85% to 96% 1st quality within 4 months), the workforce was reduced 15% & exports lifted to 15% of sales at 3%+ price increase. The group was sold in 3 parts for over $85M.
Planning & Delivery
Created an outline plan to allow both the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Tesco Bank ATMs to have the functionality to allow customers to donate to charities, as and when requested. The Plan identified how then functionality would be shown on screen and how donations could be made. The delivery required changes to the accounting functionality behind the scenes and involved customer accounts being debited with charity accounts being credited. The functionality is currently live across the RBS, NatWest & Tesco Bank Networks of circa 8000 ATMs.