Our Scope

Keep your eyes on the horizon

• Sales & Customers
• Human Resources / People
• Financial
• Marketing, Communications & Public Relations
• IT, Back Office & Software
• Website Design & Internet Marketing
• Manufacturing

Sales & Customers
A sign on the wall of our office says simply, "Nothing happens until somebody sells something." In other words, sales are where your business begins. It's time to return to the basics and get back to selling and selling smart! Sales' are a critical in building a successful business. There's no more important component. It's the life blood of your company and creates positive cash flow. During the Celtic Tiger years generating sales was (for the most part) pretty easy. But now the customer is clutching that wallet tightly therefore we must re-train and re-energize our team and sell our products and services using those familiar tried but true sales techniques. Perhaps the sales team may need a refresher course, or maybe they need to go on sales calls with the business owner and hear his/her language of passion and commitment. It may be that the field sales people must have better communication streams with the in-house team. These are some of the categories within the sales arena that we'll address.

The customer is important!

• Highest customer loyalty companies grow at twice the rate of their competition
• Satisfying Customers without creating an emotional connection with them has no real value.
• Raising customer retention rates just by 5% could increase customer value by 25% to 100%?
• 5% Improvement in Customer retention translates into a doubling of margins (increase profits)?
• Loyal customers always return & become a dependable lifetime sales stream?
• Loyal customers brag about your service/product creating Word of Mouth advertising, the most effective advertising?

If you've good customers within your sphere of influence, we'll find a way to encourage them to buy more products or create new things to sell to them. Their loyalty should be recognized in a way that they 'feel' good about your business. It's as simple as that. Happy customers buy more stuff!

 Human Resources / People

We lean towards finding solutions to retain staff. A good team is hard to create and even harder to retain. So if you have a good group of people who are the lynchpins to your success and If there is a way to be found to keep staff we'll find it and source a plan to reduce overheads and keep the team motivated and producing.

• Staff re-organisation/restructuring (not necessarily lay offs)
• Salary surveys, reviews, benchmarking
• Identify gaps & suggest ways to improve performance
• Practical and workable incentive/bonus structures to reward and retain high achievers

 Financial

We will carry out a financial review of your business and search for paths to produce a positive and immediate impact on your cash flow. The old cliché of "cash is KING" now rings true more than ever.

• We will carry out a forensic 'blitz' of your accounts and search for hidden pockets of money
• Review internal controls search for improved efficiencies
• Assess how cash is handled and separate cash from accounting where possible.
• Review systems and information flow & Admin functions, accounting, payroll etc.
• VAT review - ensure all deductible VAT is recovered - eg overseas expenses, shipping
• If required we may suggest innovative debt collection methods
• Assess the direct costs and operating expenses.
• Research the best purchasing and procurement methods available.
• Develop cost containment measures that will reduce your outgoings.

 Marketing, Communications & Public Relations

Marketing may well be the least understood element of a successful business it's the force that defines how to sell product or service. You may have the best product or service available, but are your customers fully informed of your goods? Do your customers know, why, how and where they should buy the goods? Have you positioned the goods effectively to capture significant market share from your competitors? Are your customers compelled to buy YOUR goods versus any other? Are you using the media effectively? Is your 'message' clearly understood by your customers?

The result of effective marketing - this is the force that pushes sales and generates profits. Sales must know what to sell - marketing informs sales! The starting point are an assessment of the "The 4 Ps" of the marketing mix (Product, Place, Price and Promotion).

• Product: You need to understand your customers' (or potential customers) needs and develop your goods and/or services around them. Aspects include packaging, accessories, linked products, R&D and quality control.
• Place: This not only involves the physical aspect of your business premises but also where the goods and/or services are available (distribution). Nowadays it also includes virtual stores on the Internet as well as physical shops.
• Price: It is important to put the correct value on your goods/services. This must cover overheads, guarantee you a profit and take into account where the product is on the product life cycle.
• Promotion: Promotion covers advertising, publicity, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion and networking. You must know your target market, the image you are trying to project and the strategies which will be used.

 IT, Back Office & Software

Key to the successful and efficient running of any business is for owners and managers to have a clear understanding of their core business processes. All too often we find huge disconnects between how management think the process works, how the process actually works and how the process should work. Using the latest process description and process mapping tools we clearly show you the current state of you business processes and help you determine the optimum processes for you business. Once managers and owners have a clear understanding of how they want their business processes to work they can move forward with confidence, aligning their people, systems and software into a robust process that allows value to flow through the entire business.

 Website Design & Internet Marketing

A modern website is essential to marketing your business effectively. You must make an impression with potential customers when they try to find you on the web. When they're not looking for you, you have to market and push your business to them, be it through Google and pay-per-click advertising or through other online campaigns. Rather than having you or your staff waste hours on the phone providing information to customers, provide that information online. If you have an existing web presence we will assess its effectiveness and help you ensure that it is working efficiently for you. If you are not yet online, we will design and create the site to meet your needs and ensure you don't miss out on this huge market!

Good web design, perhaps even more than other types of design, is about information, usability clarity and consistency. Keeping your design consistent is about being professional. Inconsistencies in a design are like spelling mistakes in an essay. They just lower the perception of quality. Whatever your design looks like, keeping it consistent will always bring it up a notch. Even a poor design will be improved significantly by making it consistent throughout your site.

Meta keyword tags or meta description tags form part of your web page even though these are not the main factors that search engines employ when ranking your site. The meta description tag supplies a brief and concise summary of the contents of your web page while the meta keyword tag supplies a summary list of the important words and phrases used on your site.

 Manufacturing & Efficient Production

While the Irish manufacturing sector has received a lot of negative publicity regarding job losses and shrinking output in recent months it is important to remember that industrial output in this country accounts for almost 50% of our GDP and employs more than half a million people. The Irish economy will not recover without a strong and vibrant manufacturing sector. The strength of our manufacturing sector is dependent on the efficiency and effectiveness of each of the manufacturing businesses operating within that sector. Operating in the high wage economy we now find ourselves in the only option for manufacturing businesses is to ensure they place Productivity Improvement Programmes at the centre of their business activities and make cost reduction part of every employee's daily activity.

We'll conduct a detailed assessment of your manufacturing operations and set you on a route to achieve double digit productivity improvements in the shortest possible timeframe.