Shown at the group faux-formal awards ceremony. Keith Stanze and Jay Vandermyde from JJ Orion accept their awards from Starkey (left) and Firszt (right).
BRAVAS Group recently completed its annual workshop where charter members converged to share best practices and take classes led by BRAVAS executive directors Paul Starkey and Steve Firszt.
The charter members in attendance reported a 170-percent improvement in profit for 2015 through November, resulting in an average improvement of over $200,000 YTD for each member.
The workshop topics dug deep into ways that members can raise performance in five critical areas of the business. Each area (margin, cash, labor productivity, backlog, and profit) was given a specific metric, and best practices and recommendations were given to improve each company’s score. Twenty-four actions and more than 100 ideas were shared. Companies then created a priority across all metric areas unique to them.
“We do not want to simply grade their papers; we want to teach owners how to get an ‘A’ and work closely with them to achieve these exceptional levels,” Starkey said.
The directors believe that their member companies will experience more than $8-million in combined profit improvement this year, primarily through cash and backlog efficiencies.
Firszt projected that the labor productivity of the group could exceed 25-percent improvement in the coming year over 2015.
“While our system is very numbers based, the work and actions the members take are people and time specific and verifiable,” said Firszt.
During the event, the directors also announced the winners for its 2015 BRAVAS Awards. Atlanta, GA based Digital Interiors was honored for Best Sales Increase. The Best Gross Margin Productivity award was given to Smart Systems of Dallas, TX. For Highest Labor Productivity of Carmel, IN Digitech Custom was honored. JJ Orion of Minneapolis, MN, was awarded for both Overall Profitability, and as Business of the Year.
According to Firszt, each of these companies attained the blue benchmark level of performance in their respective categories. By example, they prove what is possible and have set the bar for others in the group. BRAVAS’s recent workshop helped 20 member companies to chart plans to reach blue, the group’s highest performance level in 2016.
BRAVAS plans to have 40 companies under the VITAL MGMT system by year-end 2016. It is not a buying group and focuses exclusively on performance management.
