He who has it on paper wins How to Maximize your ROI from Profit Management

Profit Management is sweeping through industry with the opportunity to measure, optimize and predict profitability across all aspects of a company. However, the actual track record of companies in ‘capturing the value’ from these opportunities can be mixed. In this paper, we will analyze what works, and what doesn’t.

We at Acorn Systems are fortunate to have over 100 clients that span 10+ industry segments, and who range in size from $10 million to $20 billion. Our clients have chosen to implement profit management for a variety of reasons – customer analysis, contract negotiations, vendor management, product mix, process redesign, pricing decisions, and market strategy. The client teams involved have varied from one senior manager to a cascading series of committees. Acorn’s involvement has varied from purely shipping the software to full consulting engagements. And over time, we have perfected our implementation process to enhance client success. But at the end of the day, the ROI realization from our profit systems is ultimately the clients’ responsibility. All we can do is periodically check on their performance with the system. We have a vested interest in our client’s success; and as such we regularly track our clients’ progress towards value capture – the process of utilizing Acorn’s systems to understand where opportunities for profit improvement exist, and then make changes in order to actually achieve improved profits and ROI.

The purpose of this paper is to share some of our observations of what works and what doesn’t for value capture. We have analyzed dozens of client case studies to generate our conclusions. Specifically, we examine the key success factors towards achieving strong ROI from profit management. We look for trends among our clients that would indicate success. And we relay their specific strategies that set them apart from their peers.

Over the next few pages, we will articulate the steps to maximize value capture and ROI from implementing profit management. The lessons learned have been gleaned from dozens of client projects and pertain to all industries.

[ read more ]