Case Studies

GENERAL MANAGEMENT

Focus on Profitability Improvement

At a Swiss subsidiary of a leading trading company for dental products (B2B), the goal was to increase profit.
I analyzed the cost structure and searched for growth opportunities, resulting in the following findings:

  • Relatively high costs for catalogue production
  • Irregular and lengthy dunning cycles in accounts receivable management
  • No systematic inventory management
  • No strategic partnerships with the industry
  • Untapped sales potential

I asked the team on site to develop cost reduction measures that could be implemented quickly: effective negotiation of print media production costs through tenders, professionalization of the dunning process, and establishment of a clearance management of old stock. In parallel, I focused on optimizing organizational structures and processes and identified commercial growth opportunities:

  • Optimization of personnel deployment
  • Development of strategic partnerships with top suppliers
  • Introduction of margin-enhancing pricing for selected products
  • Implementation of telephone sales
  • Design of terms and conditions models for customer acquisition

Together, we were able to reduce costs by 30%. The suppliers’ support of industry partners was developed from scratch to CHF 70,000. Gross profit was increased by 2%, and the customer base grew by 9%.
The package of measures led to significant growth in results by 17% and an increase in return by 5 percentage points.

Company Growth Thanks to Key Account Management

In a medium-sized trading company in the health care sector, the aim was to advance collaboration with existing major clients as well as to acquire new key accounts. In my role as Managing Director, I worked with the team to develop bespoke support and acquisition strategies for key accounts, which fostered trust and drove growth:

  • An existing major client with significant turnover required an adjustment to the extensive services provided, due to internal requirements. In the course of this, I was able to successfully renegotiate the terms of the service package, and for the first time, contractually agree them. Both sides now had planning certainty. Both turnover and gross profit with this client increased by double-digit percentages. Furthermore, the client recommended us: smaller sister companies began working with us, which boosted turnover by another 4%, with a margin improvement of 6%.
  • A new key account with high revenue potential has been decided, after several discussions and personal visits, to enter a cooperation. The decisive factor here was also the coordination of an individual service package, which was contractually agreed and provided planning certainty for the coming years. Both company turnover and company profit grew significantly, by double-digit percentages.

Thanks to consistent customer orientation, combined with a perspective for our own company, win-win situations arose that rewarded the entire team:
Sustainable partnerships were developed, supporting overall sales growth of 20% and a significant increase in results of 63%.