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Traditional Retail to Online Retail to increase national reach within the US

Client : Shastha Foods
Service : Business Transformation
Industry : Manufacturing

The Situation

A food manufacturer based in San Francisco was supplying food products only to local retailers. This limited their supply and revenue.

The mission was to design and implement a digital strategy in order to increase the reach of the products to all states within the USA allowing them to scale their business.

Our Approach

Azure Consulting was able to work with their team to create an online store for the client which showcased the various products and allowed the visitors to place an order seamlessly.

The Outcome

From a revenue of $150,000 US, the business has grown 3 times within 2 years making the brand synonymous within households across the USA.

Increased revenue from $500,000 to $1.5 million within two years

Client : Paloma Nuts and Confectionery
Service : Consulting services on turnaround, Culture Transformation, New Channel Development, Digital Strategy
Industry : Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

The Situation

This consulting engagement was to turn around an FMCG business selling Nuts and Confectionery with a revenue of less than $500,000 with no sales Infrastructure, business plan, channel strategy and Financial Controls.

Our Approach

The first action was to build a sales infrastructure.  We did this by recruiting BDMs with FMCG Sales experience with proper fixed and variable pay. We equipped them with sales tools such as Customer Territory maps with current product ranging, potential product ranging, promotions and marketing to support the sales process. We coached them on the job and off the job. 

The team at Azure Consulting called for submissions from branding and marketing agencies to do a brand refresh followed by relevant packaging and marketing collateral. 

We rationalized the product ranges in order to achieve better profitability and operational efficiencies. We developed new products in the health and well-being category to create differentiation from the competitors.

After careful research, we formed new sales channels, Such as Vending, e-comm` and casual retail shops in major shopping destinations. We also had to coach and advise the business promoters and the board in order to help them understand and gain buy-in with all strategic and execution Initiatives.

The Outcome

Through consistent execution on a daily basis by proper management processes and structures, over a two-year period the business became profitable, reaching $1.5 million in revenue in less than two years. 

When businesses require a defined customer engagement strategy and an execution plan in order to build trust, credibility and increase revenue, we can devise and implement customer specific engagement plans in order to create and deliver new value.

Converting the Abstract into a possible Concept and then to Reality

Client : HLK Group
Service : Consulting services on turnaround, Culture Transformation, New Channel Development, Digital Strategy
Industry : Financial Technology – Fintech

The Situation

An Australian Investment business were having major challenges in executing their Statement of Advice based on the agreed strategy with the customer. The reason for this was that all their processes were manual and when it came to execute the strategy the value of the money the customer decided to invest was lower due to fluctuations in currency and markets. This required them to go to the customer constantly to increase the investment amount which started to create poor customer experience.

Our Approach

We were able to then understand their process end to end and engaged them in a process mapping exercise to clearly identify the constraints.

Once the mapping was done, we conceptualized the solution along with them and my development team and built an Investment platform which will on board the client in real time, create their investment strategy and Statement of Advice.  Once the customer is ready with the Investment amount to electronically execute the strategy connecting into the relevant brokerage firms so that the money is invested at the agreed value in real time without any delays.

The Outcome

The investment house was recognized for developing the most Innovative Fintech product and as a business they started to gain confidence back with existing investors and new customers.

This also increased their investment portfolio from $60 million to $90 million in a year. When organizational existence becomes a risk because of poor customer engagement and experience, we can help organizations generate ideas and very quickly translate ideas into a workable solution that creates and generates new customer and organizational value.

A Change transformation that made the organisation agile and improved operational efficiency.

Client : Sankar Sealing Systems Pvt Ltd
Service : Culture Evaluation, Change Management and Organisational Management.
Industry : Automotive Component Manufacturer

The Situation

The client was a large Automotive component manufacturer with a staff strength of 800 employees selling into large Tier 1 manufacturers locally in India and Internationally.
The Issues were

• Operational Inconsistencies :
  Many of the processes and systems were ad-hoc with no documentation and no single source of truth that facilitated robust decision-making. Most of the knowledge was inside people’s heads.
• Lack of Clarity and Visibility
  Many Processes and the general tasks were carried out manually in an inefficient manner, which resulted in a lot of re-work and in-efficiency. The senior leadership team and the Management teams had no visibility of reality and were not able to solve problems at a root cause level resulting in customer dissatisfaction
• Lack of Alignment
  There was no alignment between organisational strategy and functional level strategy that resulted in siloed teams and in-consistent outcomes
• Mounting Risk
  The risk of losing market share was increasing, as there were newcomers to the market who had the technology and operated in a lean manner resulting in great operational efficiency

Our Approach

A major change and transformation program was initiated starting with organisational awareness programs to present reality and to demonstrate how it impacts individually and at an organisational level. An agile plan was initiated to first optimise the present and define the target culture, Structure, process re-design and an execution plan with involvement of key employees at all levels with top leader sponsorship

Achievements

An ERP system was implemented which connected all the key functions and started creating a culture of accountability, cost saving and better cash flow management reducing debt, and most importantly customer trust and satisfaction started to increase once again.

Successful project management model creates value for retail store

Client : Dicksmith Electronics
Service : Culture Evaluation, Change Management and Project Management, Best Practice/Benchmarking
Industry : Retail

The Situation

The retail network at Dick smith Electronics was moving from small format stores to large format stores. They brought in external expertise to lead the large format stores however the challenge was the team did not understand the Dick smith Culture and were finding it difficult to execute complemented with weak Project Management knowledge.

I was chosen to Project Manage the large store format execution from Design blueprint to Store Opening.

Our Approach

Azure applied basic Project Management frameworks to map all activities in sequence with all dependent factors and inter dependent factors along with time lines, budgets and stakeholder frameworks within the organization and outside the organization. 

The team at Azure also designed simple workshops to understand the new team and their behaviors and traits. I then mapped it against the traits and behaviors displayed by Dick smith employees in order to determine where there was a gap. Based on this gap, we were able to systematically initiate the new team with required Dick Smith traits and behaviors and Initiated Dick Smith employees with new traits and behaviors taken from the new team which were value adding.

The Outcome

The Value we created was that a new consistent team, that displayed the same traits and behaviors was formed, from a business and corporate level, once the team was organized, then the execution became fairly straight forward, and in most new projects, I was able to achieve on time, on budget execution. This exercise also formed the blueprint for all future Projects.

Where organizations are looking to sustain, transform and grow their business which requires organization wide alignment to create and deliver value to their customers   I can build a blueprint to transition teams from existing Organization structure to the next and manage the process of execution and Sustaining the Change

Australia’s leading telecommunications network improves customer experience

Client : Telstra Shop Network
Service : Business Model Innovation
Industry : Retail

The Situation

Azure Consulting was appointed by Telstra to be part of the Telstra Shop Network which was in turmoil as it was being run like a government organization and required Culture change, business model Innovation and create new retail experiences for customers.

We were allocated one of the flag ship stores in the store network which was experiencing poor customer reviews and was Loss making. The task was to turn this business around, transform and create a blueprint for implementation across the Telstra Shop Network.

Our Approach

We performed a business analysis based on resources & capability based on the 4 key pillars, People, Products, Processes and Performance.

Once the right people were in place, the focus shifted to products and services training in a diligent manner along with proper, visible, measurable goals and targets in order to drive accountability.

The Outcomes

We also created a new business model, given the location of the store, there were a lot of business customers who were not serviced properly, we created a new role for a Business specialist to visit the business customers in their offices and offer them service and solutions.

We also transformed the store into an experience centre where customers could try the various devices and see them working suited to their needs.

We created a culture of accountability, success and happiness and the loss-making store started to achieve high ratings in the Telstra Standards of excellence and started to become profitable. 

When businesses require their business model to be re-designed in order to remain competitive and grow we can create new service and product lines in order to create and deliver new value to existing customers and attract new customers.