We work closely with the leadership of the company to analyze, train and develop the management team to their full potential. Depending up the quality of your team, this could involve recruiting, replacement and reorganization to better meet the Sales, Profitability and Cashflow goals of the company.

To understand the purpose of this service you need to understand that profits and cash do not come from sales but from the effective completion of the transaction. Profits are lost from inefficiency and excessive overhead. Inefficiency generally comes from poorly designed processes and ineffective management. Most overhead excesses come from failing to complete transactions properly the first time.

Our eLearning programs are custom tailored for each client and consist of modules for management and staff training. The overall program objectives include;

• Better designed organization
• Improved recruiting and hiring methodologies to improve the initial quality of new hires.
• New hire support system including effective coaching, self-paced eLearning and skills certification.
• Improved metrics for measuring stall effectiveness.
• Customer-focused selling, customer care or other skills.

The program objective is for new hires and failing associates to perform at veteran level in a much shorter time. This reduces costs, improves retention and increases productivity.

Today's consumer is much more demanding in terms of how they want to be sold and serviced, in light of more shopping options than ever before. This requires most companies to take a fresh look at how their sales associates work with shoppers and how customer care personnel work to ensure success.

We look at the entire organization and team to develop management, training and support solutions that help companies be successful in spite of an ever growing field of competitors.

We follow the "paper trail" from sales to accounting to uncover inefficiencies and opportunities. This process includes interviews with department managers and supervisors, observation of processes in action, and review of reports and routines used in decision making.

You will receive a formal and confidential report detailing recommendations for building a people- and paper-efficient operation. Included will be the most to least urgent issues and alternate solutions, along with recommended timetables and staffing. This report serves as a foundation for strategic planning and process improvement going forward.

Most home furnishing retailers somehow allow their software solutions to dictate how their businesses are run, often taking the path of least resistance. However, systems and processes are in place to support the directions of your business. Your business direction is likely a stew of grandma and grandpa's vision, mom and dad's vision, the varied visions of your siblings, coupled with serving the needs of your systems, staff and customers. Therefore, it may be necessary to get back to basics and "work on your business instead of in your business."

Utilizing what we learn from our Systems and Process Review and your Strategic Plan we can map out a systems and technology strategy that meets your budget and business objectives.

When we refer to "systems," this includes the processes utilized to meet your business needs including the hardware and software applications that support them. We provide advice on the most efficient means of accomplishing tasks with the minimum of people and paper wasted along the way.

Most retailers spend their day putting out fires throughout their business. And it's pretty hard to work on fire prevention in the middle of a firestorm. We will help you to establish the best management reporting that supports day to day decision making and help you to interpret the data. From this you will understand how to spot smoke before there's fire. Further, this will free executives to work on activities that grow and improve the business, not just get through each day.

Most of the turnkey software solutions available have been developed over time to meet the needs of hundreds of retailers. Therefore, they are often cumbersome and complex beyond your individual needs. This is especially true of reporting processes. Available reports likely contain ten times the information you need, resulting in a five pound report where two pages would have sufficed. And it often takes three or four of these "anvils" to get to the correct answer. Using modern PC-based software technology, we will help design, build, install and train on simplified reporting systems that incorporate your existing data and software, which eliminates redundant input. You'll be able to call up simple graphic and text analyses on your desktop that point you in the direction of new or growing problems, making yourself and your management more effective.

Taking advantage of our years of experience in the home furnishings industry, we will be developing turnkey management workstation solutions that integrate with existing host software applications. These workstations will simplify and improve the areas of Merchandising, Operations, Customer Service, Finance Management, Client Development and other key profit and loss functions.

Most of the processes that take place in a home furnishings store are products of evolution and not design. They tend to incorporate old methods, new methods demanded by your software provider, and things dreamed up by individuals to make their lives easier. The resulting "ball of string" leads to excesses in people and paper, as well as costly delays. We will work with your team to develop text and computer-based procedures that will help you with everything from new hire training to corporate auditing.

We can help you to develop a comprehensive internal training program that gets new people up to speed quickly and keeps existing people in tune with the ever changing needs of a growing business.

At some time you will probably outgrow your existing software solution and find yourself in the market for a new one. And you will probably lean toward a solution that solves a particular ongoing problem while presuming it does everything else fine, a costly error. Due to the mystery and time consuming nature of evaluating choices the selection often comes down to what references had to say. But every company has unique needs and skills and, therefore, has different demands of a new system. And the cost of switching systems is often double the initial investment to complete the installation.

Our straightforward review process helps you to cut through the hype and gain the necessary understanding of each package to make a good decision. We work with your team to evaluate needs and expectations and, if you desire, will produce a formal RFP (Request for Proposal) for comparing candidates. We then work with you to secure a meaningful hands-on demonstration of each new system, along with reference visits to witness the solution in action. We will also work with you during the negotiation process to ensure that you get the right system at the right price.

Retailers who are frustrated and angry at their software provider are usually the victim of a poor installation instead of a bad choice of software. Home Furnishings retail is the most complex of all retail environments by a factor of ten. Therefore, the software solutions that support this industry are also complex. Coupled with years of developing the system to meet the needs of hundreds of retailers and thousands of situations, these software packages can be configured in an unlimited number of ways with only one being right for you. Plus, your team has no spare time as it is, so who is going to install the new system while keeping the old one alive and doing business as usual? We refer to this as "painting a moving car." And, if your business is on a fast growth track then this car is on the on-ramp to the freeway.

We have years of experience with this perplexing issue and can provide project management services to ensure that your system is implemented on time within budget. Our method is designed around utilizing your existing team for installation and training, which ensures that the success of your ongoing solution will not be dependent upon outside resources. This further establishes that your team will know what they are doing from day one, instead of the years it takes to get to this point using conventional methods.