Case Study // 01
When Jennifer came to Meritas LLC, the company had gone through 3 years of heavy acquisitions and its 8 business units operating in most respects in a decentralized fashion. The company had just implemented a new accounting system that all units were supposed to use for their financial activities but system understanding was low, there was no process standardization, and many key accounting activities were still not recorded in the system (Journal entries, consolidations and misc corrections done on excel). As a result, the company could not report financials on a timely basis, accounts went unreconciled (real financial risks to the business were going undetected), and possibly worst of all customer billing statements were inaccurate and difficult to read, causing a large volume of customer complaints that threatened the reputation and future of the underlying businesses not to mention poor cash flow.
Jennifer first set to substantiate key balance sheet accounts (Cash, Unapplied cash, Receivables) using system information and reviewed the processes that drove that information. In doing so she uncovered vast process issues that were leading to inaccurate and untimely customer billing statements and internally were driving incorrect revenue recognition and forecasting which served as the basis for capital investment decisions and cash needs assessments. After identifying the issues, she worked with the IT leader to expand system functionality, developing reports that would lead to the early detection and correction of issues, developed processes to correct the issues and subsequently trained the accounting and customer service teams to execute the new processes as part of their daily routines. New customer billing statements were then developed and tested with customers and rolled out to all business units with positive customer feedback.
Having addressed the issues related to customers and revenue accuracy, Jennifer then worked with each business unit and the accounting leader to establish a monthly closing calendar and process to ensure a timely financial close entirely on the system. This reduced financial reporting from 20 to 5 days and enabled management to evaluate business progress, update forecasts and take next steps immediately.
Once financial integrity in reporting was assured, Jennifer turned to creating Key Process Indicators and setting up operating mechanisms to improve the financial performance of the business. This included the creation of customer aging reports and weekly collections pulses driving past dues down 45% and bad debt down $1.3M. Jennifer also implemented a weekly pipeline and orders reporting process where business leaders reported out to senior leaders on the status of orders and brainstormed plans for driving closure. This ultimately gave the business an advanced view of the health of the business 12 months out so key operational and financial plans could be made surrounding staff and capital alignment.
Case Study // 02
While Jennifer spent one year developing the first commercial finance program for GE's $1B Mining division she worked heavily with the divisions Chief Commercial Officer and the businesses 70+ person sales organization. In doing so, Jennifer spent time listening to the team's frustrations that insisted that the division was leaving value on the table by offering customers singular equipment and services from each GE Business unit instead of going to market with solutions and equipment packages which bundled products and services from across the company and 3rd parties to solve a unique customer need. The challenges in negotiating between internal divisions on sub-component pricing and margin and at the same time trying to close the deal with the end customer at a price that would WIN the deal and bring the company value was extremely cumbersome. This often led to deal losses due to price or non-bids due to time constraints in pulling customer bids together . Sales felt this challenge needed to be solved if the division was going to increase competitiveness.
To solve the problem Jennifer developed a co-selling model and strategy by working with over 40 business units in the company as well as legal and tax personnel. The model defined margin requirements between businesses and delegated authority on end-customer price and contract risk negotiation to senior GE Mining executives. This eliminated huge amounts of time previously spent in the inquiry to order process which could now be directed at winning the deal with the end-customer. As a result of the model a new business was launched, GE Mining Solutions, to lead and execute all multi-business content deals in the Mining space.
Launched in a time of mining industry decline, in under 2 years Mining Solutions won 3 deals totaling over $30MM in incremental revenue with customers based in Chile, Ghana, and Canada. Those deals touched over 14 GE businesses who would not have been able to sell their content independently. Jennifer also developed a remote accounting model that enabled the new business unit to close the books timely and compliantly using the legal entities and currencies established for each deal.
It is this kind of ability to solve problems and add strategic value that is at the heart of our Principal's experience.