Strategy - BCI

Our methodology is based on “Strategic Profit Improvement” or SPI. This approach enables our team to apply our extensive knowledge of industry best practices and database of key performance indicators to quickly determine performance gaps in people, process and technology. Our Strategic Profit Improvement approach was developed based on our experience with many of the top retailers in the US, as well as retailers in the United Kingdom and Australia. Each member of the Birkhofer Consulting team has at least 18 years of combined industry experience and Big 4 consulting experience. This deep industry experience enables us to hit the ground running and quickly determine areas of opportunity.

What is Strategic Profit Improvement?

SPI is a proven solution set that delivers significant results in 6 to 9 months by affecting the four principal value drivers in any retail organization:
1. Increasing revenue
2. Reducing costs
3. Optimizing asset utilization
4. Leveraging technology

SPI is generally a wide-scale approach driven by:

1. The client’s corporate strategy
2. A simultaneous top-down and bottom-up approach to analysis
3. A broad assessment of the entire organization’s value chain
4. Targeted high impact, high value areas used to generate substantial savings and improvements

SPI programs produce quantifiable benefits in 6 to 9 months, allowing the client to:

1. Improve revenue growth and yields
2. Reduce and control costs
3. Improve profit margins
4. Increase employee focus on higher-value added activities
5. Optimize assets and manage investments
6. Free-up trapped capital to fund growth Increase shareholder value

How is SPI different from typical cost cutting approaches?

To be sustainable; profit improvement efforts must:

1. Eliminate unproductive work, not merely reducing labor hours
2. Involve both management and employees in the development process
3. Enhance effectiveness by ranking and properly focusing assets and resources
4. Assist in achieving the full benefit of IT investments and information
5. Establish an effective compliance program to avoid cost and process “creep back”

To position the company for future growth; the project must:

1. Enhance, not reduce, the capability of the revenue generating functions
2. Increase competitiveness by improving the overall cost structure
3. Free-up trapped capital by allocating assets to invest in areas needed to compete in the future
4. Assist in creating new and flexible performing business models to reposition the organization for future growth
5. Build organization leadership and change management skills to increase resilience

Our firm operates on a lower overhead and simplified business model versus the traditional Big 4 consulting firms. This enables our team to provide Big 4 expertise at a lower cost and higher value to our clients. In many cases our clients have realized a return on the investment in our fees that exceeded a twelve-to-one payback.