By Rich Bond
Many companies use processes that don’t work. Yet, they never bother to change them.
Take for example a great client of mine that was in the bottled water business. Their spring water products enjoyed double-digit growth in sales and profits, which led them to hire a half-dozen people through me.
However, their value brand, which competed with Dasani and Aquafina, languished. An individual I placed told management that the value brand was being produced in the same way as the spring water brands, which saddled it with significantly higher costs than that of their competitors. Dasani and Aquafina were simply tap water purified, bottled, and sold in local markets, while my client’s brand was being shipped hundreds of miles.
The person I placed convinced management to set up a pilot purification and bottling plant in Houston, where wholesale customers could pick up the product. Costs were lowered, sales boomed, and the company adopted a new nation-wide plant location methodology based on the Houston model.
Previously, management had believed they were a cost-efficient producer because they only looked at their production-site costs, never stopping to consider freight costs.
With the new model, the value brand’s sales more than doubled and unnecessary capital expenditures were avoided.
I have helped my clients hire and retain many financial professionals like the one I recruited for the water business, enabling them to increase sales and profits.
If you are interested in hiring finance people who will help your company grow the bottom line, give me a shout.
