Pipeline & Backlog

RBS helped a privately held $15M medical device testing company to project future revenue based on existing backlog & pipeline in support of efforts to sell the company.

We used historic data to model a standard project lifecycle profile (activity trend over time) which was then applied to each project in the backlog and pipeline based on project start date and expected duration.

Now client is able to evaluate actuals against the forecast and identify whether variances were driven by scope or timing changes. They can also determine change drivers between original budget and current forecast.

The sales team can be held accountable to accurate scope, start date and duration assumptions during the quoting process and now actively works with project implementation teams to ensure they are aligned on requirements and timelines.

Budgeting & Planning

A $60M medical device company needed help with its annual plan including improved alignment of sales/production plan and overhead expense simplification.

RBS built some simple tools in Excel and worked directly with the Sales Team and Production planning to establish a common understanding around customer demand and production lead-time requirements. Sales is now less likely to over promise to customers and production is better informed about upcoming large orders that could disrupt schedules.

In addition, RBS refreshed the expense planning template to ensure commonality of assumptions and descriptions. This allowed for better comparability among departments and aided in the consolidation of total results by senior leadership which lead to better feedback to department owners and the ability to monitor edits and changes.

Acquisition

Led on-site integration of $25M bold-on acquisition to a $150M division in a $1B enterprise with focus on all elements that touch financial results. This included:

  • Project estimating

  • Transition from Billing as Revenue to Percentage of Completion (POC) revenue recognition

  • Expense processing migration

  • Personnel/timesheet tracking migration

  • Training of acquired resources in new company procedures and policies

  • Opening Balance Sheet revaluation

  • Intercompany funding and asset transfers

Acquired company was fully integrated in less than 90 days.

Sales & Ops Planning

Improved customer demand and production capacity communication for $450M consumer products company including both manufactured and sourced product solutions.

The Production team planned activity based on capacity constraints and historic demand. Long production runs of customer specific items and multi-day changeover times meant that the company was unable to accommodate unexpected changes to customer demand.

RBS established a weekly dialog between Sales and Production to discuss current demand forecast (not historic) and identify potential pitfalls where production was not on track to meet that demand. RBS also developed simple templates which compiled data from Order Management and Production Planning (two different systems) into a single view which highlighted risks and opportunities.

As a result, Production developed the ability to increase flexibility with shorter production runs and quicker changeovers and increase overall production by expanding shift coverage. At the same time, Sales worked with customers to firm up demand earlier when possible, modify delivery expectations and, where necessary, substitute an alternative product to smooth demand.