Centralizing Services into High Performing Centers of Excellence

The Challenge:

Acton Mobile Industries operates a regional model, with 22 locations across the United States.  Due to the effect of the 2008 recession, Acton needed to rethink its business model.  Several challenges existed;

• Culture and Tradition – Each Acton location traditionally operated as a stand-alone business with minimal centralized services.
• Design – Implementation in many locations would be difficult to justify given their size and location.
• Centers of Excellence – A successful engagement would require the development of new centers of excellence while maintaining service to customers and optimal information flow.

The engagement approach was to centralize the inbound and outbound sales functions, dispatch services, as well as the customer service representatives.  Detailed analysis was conducted at various locations to identify how these Centers of Excellence should operate; location specific processes, work flow differences, work load balancing, management oversight and accountability, and coverage in some of the smaller locations. The Centers of Excellence were then developed and installed, modifying and standardizing the processes and management systems while adequately supporting each of the locations and their customers.

The Results:

• Savings achieved 3.8:1 return on investment. Savings represented an improvement equal to approximately 5% of sales.
• A new organization structure was developed and installed to support further growth.

Sales

• Outbound call volume increased by 80% after implementation. Quote volume increased 56%.
• Inbound and outbound sales groups were centralized to two locations.
• The selling group was streamlined to focus their efforts on sales vs. other administrative activities in the field.
• The credit application process was improved to reduce cycle time to 24 hours or less.

Logistics Coordinators

• Service call volume decreased by 19% since implementation.
• Logistics Coordinators were centralized into a virtual Center of Excellence.
• Invoicing process was streamlined to reduce multiple handling and error rates.