How Process and Structure Resulted in 50% Revenue Growth over 3 Years

Picture this: a family-owned trucking and transportation company with almost one-hundred employees averaging $25 million per year in revenue. It’s every family’s dream to grow a business this successful, and there’s no reason to not want to push even further.

As many businesses do, though, this one hit a plateau in growth, and they reached out to Poka-Yoke Solutions for help identifying exactly what was holding them back and, more importantly, guidance and help to fix it.

Beginning with a consultation, Poka-Yoke’s team of Operations Experts, Project Managers and Six Sigma trained Process Analysts found a great company with fantastic goals and people hindered by an entirely-paper process for everything from order processing to scheduling to billing. They were also bogged down by an unclear organizational structure where even higher-level leaders were performing tactical tasks. The outdated data entry methods and lack of clear communication were not only causing a lack of growth, but bleeding cash on inefficient workflows.

Poka-Yoke Solutions identified the gaps and crafted a course of action to help drive this company forward. By streamlining and digitizing their processes, we were able to create new order-to-cash workflows and implement them electronically. This process saved the company dozens of weekly man hours and improved efficiency of the order-to-cash timeline by nearly 3 weeks, which meant better cash flow for the company as a whole. To tackle structural issues, we also helped the client build a comprehensive organizational chart to alleviate confusion between staff and management on who performs which roles, who to hire for those roles and ultimately allowing operational leaders to return to operations.?

To further bolster this company’s processes, Poka-Yoke built out a centralized online training system, which now due to their growth is supporting all 175 employees, and achieved a 94% training completion rate, empowering everyone who works there with the knowledge and skills they need to feel good about and feel good at their job.

Poka-Yoke Solutions, as with all clients, continues to monitor and support this company to avoid new gaps from growing after implementation. Three years later, this company has experienced 50% growth, 43 new defined roles, and over 350 new SOPs documented.

“Our company has been going steadily the last 5-6 years, and we were always lacking in getting our processes documented,” said their COO. “Not only did {Poka-Yoke} help with this, but they also jumped in with both feet, speaking to a number of our team members to really get familiarized with our specialized processes and service offerings.” The COO added, “I know where we were as a company, and I know where we are now, but I don’t know how we could have gotten there without them.”?

Growth is amazing for your business and often you outgrow your existing systems and processes as you expand. But to be positioned for even further growth, you must establish strong systems and processes, documentation and clarity in your operations.. Change can be a scary thing for your team, but through deep exploration, trust, compassion, and a true understanding of your goals and current processes, we can enhance your efficiency, reduce your errors, and increase your profits.?

Reach out if you are ready for the Poka-Yoke Effect for your business.

Look forward to connecting,

Erica ([email protected])