When a business struggles with its performance – and often its survival is on the line -- the first step is a turnaround plan. When the pressure is on, that plan needs the insights and experience of consultants who have been there before. What I encourage CCO’s manufacturing clients to ask themselves is: will my consultants give me a great plan, or will they do that AND work elbow-to-elbow with us to fully accomplish the mission – a rapid return to peak performance and profitability?

Before we started our firm, CCO’s leadership team fixed numerous broken plants and processes around the world.

We helped people find the obstacles to optimum operations and return balance to what are often complex production systems. We learned a lot, including that the solutions in the right turnaround plan are nothing more than talk unless they’re backed up with executional support. Turning around a struggling business is truly a case where half a loaf is NOT better than none.

So, we started our business. And it’s growing fast in large part because we execute assignments all the way through to the desired outcome.

We start with a holistic and science-based approach to problem solving – our “FIT” operations method drives at managing complex systems toward profit. It’s a worldview that departs from the all-too-common overemphasis on cost reduction. Yes, we often find opportunities to take out cost or streamline processes, but FIT is different in that it is aimed at improving the overall health of an organization to drive improved cash flow and EBITDA. FIT also yields improved customer satisfaction and helps the client’s people grow and develop along the way. Ultimately, our mission is to help our clients aggressively fight to achieve fundamental change in business operations. To help their enterprise not only survive, but to thrive.

To us, that means delivering far more than ideas in a nice presentation deck. We don’t serve up the solutions and wish you well with the execution. We’re there to help activate change programs and see them through to the outcome. We stay engaged to complete the turnaround mission and help our clients re-balance to performance and profit, and to avoid wasting the precious and limited resources: money and time.

CCO Partners: Scott Wawrzyniak, Chris Ostrander, Bill Currence