“I wish I had them on my first day.”
Even if you know the industry, it takes time to understand how a particular business really works. In four weeks, Ares gave us insights that would normally take a new leader a year to piece together, and I wish I had them on my first day. That is why Ares is now built into the first weeks of our 180-day plan.
The problem
“At RESVION, every acquisition starts with our 180-day plan, and that plan is only as good as our understanding of how the business really works. So at our very first investment, Tremonia, we brought in Ares.
“Tremonia was a carve-out, and like most carve-outs it required an ERP migration. Much of how the work really got done lived with our people rather than in our systems.”
Discovery
“It was important to us to hear from everyone, from the management board to the paint shop, so every employee was invited to a confidential conversation with Ares in their own language.
“Shop-floor staff took part on their own phones during their shift, and the works council approved the project before launch. People will tell a confidential interviewer things they would never raise in a meeting, however good their relationship with management, and many of the most valuable findings came from those conversations.”
“Compared with a traditional consulting diagnostic, it was faster, cost a fraction, and reached the shop floor in a way that workshops and management interviews rarely do.”
Clarity
“Ares recommended savings in the millions and identified further potential on top of that.
“It found more than 400 hours a month of avoidable manual work, more than 30 spreadsheets doing work our ERP should do, key-person dependencies in critical processes, and issues that no leader could see from the top on their own.
“Every finding came with the evidence behind it and a ranked plan for what to fix first. We have already acted on it, setting up a document management system, cleaning our data and bringing in a partner to rebuild our product configurator.
“Even if you know the industry, it takes time to understand how a particular business really works. In four weeks, Ares gave us insights that would normally take a new leader a year to piece together, and I wish I had them on my first day.”
“That is why Ares is now built into the first weeks of our 180-day plan.”