Pro Bike Tool

Case Study
 
“We had products that people wanted, but we couldn’t cope with demand as our business was growing rapidly, we needed help prioritising, building structure, systems and processes. Getting Dan and the Scaleup team on board was the best decision we ever made – they transformed the way we work and the systems we use and the business is growing rapidly as a result.” 

Chris Parr – Co-Founder, Pro Bike Tool

Background

Chris and Nicole Parr – co-founders of Pro Bike Tool (PBT) – asked for our help in boosting and managing growth.

They owned an established company successfully manufacturing bike accessories and selling them internationally through Amazon and their own website. As well as working full-time themselves, they employed someone to help them with marketing, and a virtual assistant (VA) in the Philippines.

After three years of trading they had a $4 million annual turnover, but a number of factors hampered future growth:

  • Too much time spent on business admin, so they couldn’t commit to growing the business
  • Isolated systems that didn’t share data easily, hampering team collaboration
  • Poor planning contributing to
    • Stock over-ordering tying up much-needed money in unsold goods and increased warehousing costs
    • Stock under-ordering, resulting in lost sales and high delivery costs to bring in emergency stock

In short, Chris and Nicole were facing the classic problem of growing businesses – they didn’t have the right systems and processes in place to capitalise on demand.

Our Approach

We spent time at PBT understanding the problems and observing their working practices.

This enabled us to provide:

 

  • A clear breakdown of which tasks the VA could complete and which needed to be dealt with in-house
  • Clarity on important vs unimportant and urgent vs non-urgent tasks and how to prioritise them, giving Chris and Nicole more time to work “on” the business rather than “in” the business
  • A full review of all existing IT systems and an assisted move to new and improved systems across email, spreadsheets and cloud storage
  • Introduction of a task management system to enable fast and effective team working, regardless of location
  • Introduction of a project management tool to provide clarity of on-going and future activities and enable informed prioritisation

Results

Our support and advice led to many valuable changes at PBT, including:

Employment of a new team member

with a clear and designated role, who is helping the business grow

Creation of an organisational team structure

to support future business growth, including which roles to recruit next

Systems and processes in place

that have streamlined time-consuming tasks, freeing up Chris and Nicole to concentrate on growth and strategy

Greater visibility

on how much time is spent on each section of the business, allowing for easier and more productive planning

A consolidated internal IT system

that gives greater control, visibility and collaboration

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