success: retail
Case 1: Restore profitability for a large equestrian sports retail organization of which 12 stores were operating at a loss.
Old situation:
The stores were disorganized and poorly equipped. This resulted in low product availability. No one was able to find their way around the stores. Different article sizes were thrown together. Customers were unable to find their sizes, which resulted in lost sales. Store personnel tried to help customers find their items on the sales floor, yet these items were simply not available.
New situation:
We refurbished all the stores. In addition, we introduced a common-sense system encompassing central grouping of product types. This enables customers to find items themselves without help from store personnel. The structure and lay-out of the stores allows an instant overview of product availability. All missing items were ordered and all remaining products were used in a promotional sale. The outcome is a healthy and innovative product range customers are able to locate themselves, resulting in a 45% reduction in operational costs.
Final results:
Revenue growth and cost savings. Within one year, 75% of stores were profitable thanks to a successfully carried-out project.
Case 2: Logistics improvements for European car parts company with a chain of 65 car repair shops.
Old situation:
Parts suppliers made their deliveries at random times, causing stock room staff to sit around and wait for parts to arrive.
New Situation:
Supplier deliveries are now scheduled at specific times; early in the morning (between 6:00am and 8:00am), before business opens. This eliminated the need for stock room staff to be present all day long.
Final results:
We saved $1.5 million on a yearly base for all the garages. On top of that, we captured additional, continuous savings of $600,000 within six months. This was done by implementing constraint management, lean techniques such as “5 S,” and by instituting a continuous culture improvement initiative to achieve operational excellence.
- Taurus Concepts is active in these sectors:
- Manufacturing
- Health care
- Financial services
- Retail
- Food & beverage
- Mining
- Obstacles to improvements are:
- Labor pool issues (poor quality of employees, staff shortage or surplus)
- Low morale
- High staff turnover
- Ineffective internal communication
- Complex legislation and regulation
- Misalignment of staff performance and bonus metrics with corporate goals/objectives results in unfair compensation and lower productivity.
- Senior management's inability to implement change results in lower productivity.
- Managers, on average, spend only 11% of their time increasing productivity through active leadership.
- Managers are buried under reports they don't use to manage.
Only 60% of the reports are used to manage. - On average, managers spend 35% of their time on paper work.
For these tasks, 25% of a manager's time is preferred. - Most managers believe they can increase productivity 13.8%.
However, the actual average increase tends to be 9.8%. - The biggest challenge a company can face is that of a culture change.
- On average, 70% of companies is willing to improve productivity.
- These 4 factors are pivotal in achieving organization-wide improvements in processes and controls:
- Management
- Workforce
- Communications
- Training
- Cost reductions can be seized through:
- Business process streamlining
- Effective management control systems
- Extensive training
- The Taurus Concepts approach results in:
- Increased productivity
- Proactive staff behavior
- Strong competitive positioning
- Involvement of company's employees
- Supervisory competence is a key factor in improving productivity.
- On average, managers receive only 6 days of training per year.
- These 3 factors need to be in place to achieve organizational effectiveness & quality, and minimize waste:
- Effective supervision
- Workforce comprehension and support of processes
- Transparent communication
- During the past few years, workforce productivity has dropped to an average of 2 productive/3 unproductive days per week.