Educating the Masses
Enabling our client to accelerate their brand growth in the challenging pandemic market conditions.
Case Details
Client Sector: Education
Client Size: $xxxM
Project Duration: 48 months
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Introduction
When we first met this client, they had been in operation for around 8 years and were showing modest year on year growth, but looking for a partner that could help them accelerate. Their sales team was bringing them orders that couldn’t be filled, and customers for their products were being let down due to long lead times and install dates.
Over the time we worked together, we enabled them to get ahead of their production requirements and take a significant step forwards in the growth of their business to a more sustainable financial footing.
About our client
Founded in 2012, the client is a major provider of technology to education and retail markets. Their target markets are middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across the 50 states. More recently they have expanded their operation to Europe.
They have a heavy focus on creating high quality products, which they commit to supporting through its full lifecycle. Their products work seamlessly with other software and hardware products, making them one of the most flexible and unique brands in the space.
Why did they need us?
The client was growing, however at the same time was facing supply chain challenges from their factory in China. The client was capable of winning more education contracts, but only of they could access their product faster and improve on install lead times.
To make matters worse, the world was entering the unknown arena of Covid-19 – at that time nobody knew what that would mean for global supply chain performance and the businesses that relied heavily on them.
Factory lead times were increasing, component availability was a consistent issue, container costs from China to USA had increased ten-fold and even if you could get the product to the USA , there were significant port delays, all adding up to significant frustrations for all parties involved.
Why did they choose us?
Through our conversations with the client we were able to demonstrate that we could construct a solution that would meet their medium-term goals, but crucially without getting in the way of their business processes.
Through our partnership, the client continued to own the relationships with their factory, their logistics providers and their customers. We were a partner on the periphery of their universe, providing support where necessary.
What solution did we create?
On behalf of the client, we took responsibility for the procurement of their inventory from their factory in China.
We worked with the client on weekly forecasts for stock based on their sales pipeline, which we then translated to factory purchase orders. Our superior cash position allowed us to buy into the inventory the client needed to meet the increasing order requirements their sales team was bringing them, but had previously been unable to execute due to cashflow restrictions.
Due to their modest size, another problem the client had faced was linked to credit availability – they hadn’t been able to obtain enough of a credit line to be able to purchase the goods they needed to grow. We helped them overcome that hurdle by putting in place a system of “direct pay” – using the credit availability of their downstream clients to bolster their purchasing power.
What were the results?
Almost immediately, the client was able to win more contracts because they could commit to inventory availability. A year later, when the pandemic hit, components for their products became scarce and prices shot up. Thanks to the buying power provided by our solution and leading change in their forecasting model, the client was able to secure the inventory it needed to continue to grow while competitor brands struggled to get stock.
During the four year period the client partnered with us, they grew over 400% in revenue.
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