{"id":1459,"date":"2014-08-26T18:16:48","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T18:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.department99.com\/bobamter\/?page_id=1459"},"modified":"2017-03-16T15:37:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T15:37:32","slug":"case-study-viking-connectors-inc","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/?page_id=1459","title":{"rendered":"Case Study: Viking Connectors Inc."},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><em>Viking Connectors Inc.<\/em><\/h2>\n<h2><em>Fort Lauderdale, Florida<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Situation &amp; Problems<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 1969, I was a management consultant with George S. Armstrong &amp; Co. in New York City. A Norwegian client owned Viking Connectors. Viking was a manufacturer of steel connector plates and design engineering services sold to builders of prefabricated roof trusses. The company had lost money for five years. I was appointed General Manager.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, Viking&#8217;s patented connector plates produced the strongest, most reliable plate in the industry with the lowest cost per roof truss. Their reliability was verified by a Federal Housing Administration test. This fact was not used by prior management in soliciting new customers and retaining current customers in the highly competitive marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>Reasons Viking lost money:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Poor management.<\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Low sales volume.<\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Unsatisfactory customer service, including its unacceptable roof truss design engineering service.<\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Absence of cost accounting.<\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">High expenses, unrelated to the company\u2019s operation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Actions Taken and Results Achieved:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Implemented a sales development program to get new customers. Focused on the FHA&#8217;s certification that Viking&#8217;s connector plates were superior in design and cost versus competitors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As new and profitable sales were obtained, visited each existing customer to discuss that Viking was selling below cost and that prices were being increased. Did not lose a single customer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Terminated the company employed design engineering staff. Hired an external and well-regarded engineering firm to provide quality, on-time roof truss designs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Installed a cost accounting system. This resulted in cost reductions, accurate pricing by stock keeping unit, improvements in production planning, and lower inventories.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In six months, Viking was operating at break even with a positive cash flow. The client decided to sell the company, which we completed successfully.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>================================<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">George S. Armstrong &amp; Co. was a leading management consulting firm advising manufacturing and service corporations on strategic planning, operating problem diagnosis, acquisition due diligence, marketing, evaluated management\u2019s profit performance for Boards of Directors. Clients: American Standard, Crown Zellerbach, Lone Star Cement.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-url=\"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/?page_id=1459\" data-text=\"Case Study: Viking Connectors Inc.\" data-count=\"horizontal\">Tweet<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Viking Connectors Inc. Fort Lauderdale, Florida Situation &amp; Problems In 1969, I was a management consultant with George S. Armstrong &amp; Co. in New York City. A Norwegian client owned Viking Connectors. Viking was a manufacturer of steel connector plates and design engineering services sold to builders of prefabricated roof trusses. The company had lost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1459","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1638,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1459\/revisions\/1638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}