Process and modeling experts at Big Sky Associates have designed operational improvements to save a private equity portfolio company $1.5 million in annual costs and realize 28% potential capacity gains in under 4 months.

Big Sky Associates set up a leading private equity (PE) firm's acquired services company to achieve an approximate 260% return on investment and positioned the portfolio company to undertake larger contracts in the future.

"Big Sky took a unique approach," said Big Sky Associates founder and President, John Dillard. "By building a custom SkySolve TM model of the company's core processes and demand forecasts, we were able to track costs, resources and process efficiency. This tailored model allowed for one-click testing of scenarios and showed how our FlightPath TM recommendations affected results in just 15 weeks."

This past fall, the leading private equity firm acquired the services company in question, but the firm needed to reduce costs and position the company for growth, quickly. Looking for a partner to identify clearly measurable financial gains, they tapped Big Sky Associates.

Although the portfolio company had an excellent track record and a solid customer base, it needed to reduce its cycle time and better manage variation in demand - including rapid growth - all without sacrificing the quality of its products or reputation.

"To achieve results in just 15 weeks, Big Sky Associates used a four-stage approach," noted Dillard. "First, we defined the project's goals. Second, we visualized them with a value stream mapping session. Third, we prioritized improvements and selected the best possible schedule. Finally, we developed an implementation plan to help our clients realize value creation as rapidly as possible."

Big Sky also identified "quick wins" for the portfolio company: savings opportunities to be implemented in less than two weeks. With the quick wins alone, in 12 weeks the portfolio company saved more than Big Sky's total fees in direct costs and tripled those fees in indirect costs.

About Big Sky Associates

Big Sky Associates is a Washington, D.C. and Charlotte-based company that provides custom operations improvement services to government agencies, middle market banks and private equity firms. Big Sky is committed to delivering tangible savings and efficiency gains by executing powerful decision analysis and process improvement projects. Big Sky Associates and its clients are the winners of numerous awards for excellence in operational improvement. For more information, visit bigskyassociates.com.

Big Sky Associates
April Resnick, Marketing Manager
202-713-9301
aresnick@bigskyassociates.com