THE COMPANY

Southern Business Research is a management consulting firm that specializes in the design and installation of management systems that result in reduced costs and increased productivity. It is the largest company of its kind headquartered in the Southeast, and has served clients in thirty-nine different states as well as Japan, Canada and Latin America. 

Southern Business Research provides our clients with a management system that is designed with a “people-to-people” concept. 

Our program builds from the grass-roots up rather than from the top down. The primary thrust is to identify recoverable lost time and to increase the utilization of people and equipment by a custom-designed methodology for the systematic planning and control of work. We are experts at the art of “human engineering”, not headhunters. 

It is most important to understand that the system becomes self perpetuating and will continue to grow as the client’s company grows or changes. Because our knowledge of a client’s business and people is objective and comprehensive, many clients have chosen to continue a long-term association through retainers and directorships.

The initial step in working with Southern Business Research is a “walk-through”. This can generally be accomplished within a few hours - never more than a day. The “walk-through” is an opportunity for our president, Don Schwerzler, to meet the key people of a management team and to gain a tactile sense of the operational centers. It is at this point that the scope of the analysis can be ascertained.

The second step, the analysis, is a rather rigorous examination of the basic fundamentals of the work process:
 

• measurement of lost time
• management tools and controls
• ability to diagnose problems
• training
• production variances
• work flows
• organization
• intensity of first-line supervision
• production scheduling
• objective appraisal of the capabilities of people and equipment

At the end of the two-week period a formal presentation is made of WHAT WE FIND and WHAT WE PROPOSE. It is at this point that we can ascertain the improvements in productivity and other improvements that can be realized, the length of the installation period, and the fee necessary to obtain the savings.

The project begins immediately following the analysis presentation. The most pressing reasons being:
 

• to allow for continuity
• to create a sense of urgency

This phase will generally run between three to six months, although in some instances we can proceed more quickly. However, the time for installation must be matched to the capacity of our client’s management team to absorb and ratify changes in work methods as well as work philosophy.

The staff of Southern Business Research are all operations specialists. Almost all of their time is spent where the work is being done. You will find each of our staff members to be a most exceptional individual, willing to commit themselves to the same sense of excellence shared by the chief executive officer of our clients. 

Because of their craftsmanship, our only contract with a client is a handshake. Since we bill on a weekly basis, the client has the ability to evaluate our progress and should they not be satisfied in what we are doing or how we are doing it, they need not continue the project. We preach excellence and performance; we practice it as well.
 
 

Need for Productivity Awareness

Profit improvement must become a way of life with industry. There are only two ways of increasing profit:
 

• Reduce the cost of providing goods or services; and
• Secure higher prices for the goods or services

Our primary concern is in operational improvement, which has resolved into the number one major problem confronting all business - that is, “increased worker productivity.” The problem is intensified in the face of:
 

• A shortage of skilled help
• Rising labor costs and wages
• Increased customer demands due to the quality of competition
• Decline of work ethic
• Sociological changes and governmental restrictions

All of this has resulted in increased demand on the managerial abilities of line supervision to do the best job with what they have available in both people and equipment. In response to this, most supervisors say they need:
 

• More people
• Better trained people
• Newer and better maintained equipment
• Higher pay scales

It is important to note that rarely will we find a first-line supervisor who says they are dissatisfied with the performance of their department. In other words, they are doing as well as they know they can. More importantly, because of their background and lack of professional training, they are usually more of an extension of the work force rather than an extension of management. The result is apparent: 

Because we work only with successful clients, we are generally not confronted by a business that has remained static from a technical standpoint. However, philosophically, the management team, while generating new ideas and multitudes of projects, has generally stagnated on the premises of ‘We do it this way because it has always been done this way.” In other words, they spend most of their intellectual energy supporting the status quo rather than risking the problems entailed with change. 

More importantly, they will demonstrate that this year we did better than last year - rarely will one have the courage to ask the more critical question: “How much better should we have done?” The latter statement requires an analysis of the failures and shortcomings rather than merely highlighting the success. 

It is only when we have the courage to examine the failures or shortcomings that lasting corrective action can be accomplished. Until then, management will spend its time on treating the symptoms of problems and not the root cause. 

Therein lies the difference between mediocrity and excellence.