Case Studies

This is a selection of the projects I have run over my career chosen to illustrate the breadth of my activities and the pragmatism of the solutions

 

Appropriate Solutions

Outline - the trials and tribulations of a business in Africa - please keep it KISS!

Status - ongoing

Please read more on Business in Turbulence

 

 

Where are the Profits?

Outline –A Cosmetics distributor has a wide-ranging change in the Business organisation model. Now it needs a change in reporting to support this. Please do this very quickly and cheaply

Status – on going

Please read more on Where are the profits

 

 

Business Survival by Careful Planning
Outline realistic business planning and careful monitoring of key operational and financial parameters helps a recruitment agency survive the 2008 credit crunch
Status - on going
Please Read More on Business Survival 

 

Software Developer
Outline Brief review of the activities of a small software house to develop extra revenue/ contain costs as part of his survival.
Status – Finished
Please Read More on Software Developer

 

Reduce Working Capital by $2.5m
Outline Developing the appropriate monitoring process cuts $2.5m+ from capital tied up in importing in an African country and increases product availability and freshness
Status – finished
Please Read More Reduce Working Capital

 

Making IT deliver Business benefits

 

Few people get the opportunity to apply IT technology in a paradigm shift that is clearly makes major changes in the business model of a company. Over my career I have had this opportunity four times as the examples below indicate

 

Faster communication
Outline In the early 90s, the Web was still in its infancy and the universal e mail systems of today were yet to be created. The opportunity was becoming obvious but how to do it and what the benefits would be worth were impossible to estimate other than large. My opportunity was to improve internal communications (and cut costs) in a major Unilever company in the early 90s by making apparently incompatible E mails systems interconnect and run effectively. The success was measured by the change in the expression ‘I’ll send a fax’ to ‘I’ll send an e mail’ in less than a year.
Status – Finished
Please Read More  NC CS - Faster Communication

 

Cheap Warehouse Space
Outline In the late 80s, the ability of the PC to change business processes and thinking was becoming clear. The number of applications was growing rapidly and their price falling exponentially. Amongst the applications emerging were warehousing optimisation ones.
Realising the opportunity, I ‘found’ 6-10% more space in a warehouse belonging to a Unilever Company overseas by revising product stacking patterns on pallets at a cost a few hundred pounds. Extension to the warehouse was impossible as the site was severely constrained.
Status – Finished
Please Read More NC CS - Cheap Warehouse Space

 

 

Get Users to use PCs
Outline Users are far more creative at discovering ways to exploit PCs than IT experts will ever be but in the early days of the PC, the IT department often tried to constrain users. The Opportunity was to get users to actively seek cost justifiable business improvements using PC applications within a technical environment that would easily link to other business it applications. As IT Director, I established a policy encouraging the very active use of a limited number of PC general purpose applications which swiftly lead to real business benefits and a dramatically changed image of IT .
Status – Finished
Please Read More  NC CS - Using PCs cost effectively

 

 

Radical Change to Sales and Distribution Strategy
Outline Walls Ice-cream needed to reduce the number of sales and stock holding points to provide better more cost effective customer service as from the mid 70s. The strategy that evolved separated sales offices from stock holding . It required IT to be able to shift information in real time between the locations and to support both selling activity and vehicle scheduling and loading.
Status - Finished
Please Read More NC CS - Radical Change to Strategy