Business Transformation
250% Increased Turnover and Record Increase In Net Profit
“Since working with Rathbone Results, they have helped us gain complete control of the business. Despite our ambition and will to succeed, we needed help understanding how to make those fundamental changes and grow our business. I was making key decisions in my head without the data to back them up.”
“I now have a new mindset, manage my time effectively, and have a structure in place that really allows me to focus on the business and its continued development. This has helped us invest in our staff and business, and we are now seeing the benefits of all those decisions we have implemented with the support and guidance of Rathbone Results. We are all excited to see what the future offers DT Fire Systems.”
Darren Thorne, DT Fire Systems
Founded in 2007, DT Fire Systems designs, supplies, installs, and maintains fire and security systems nationally across large and multiple commercial sites. The last five years have seen the development of an end-to-end job management software system that differentiates DT Fire Systems within the industry.
The Challenge
Turnover was in decline, and the business owner recognised the need for help and expertise to maximise opportunities for future growth. We identified a range of focus areas for improvement:
- Overall understanding of business fundamentals and how to measure and manage these.
- Insufficient profit margins to allow for growth.
- Insufficient visibility over cash flow financial performance and profitability.
- Operational management and cross-company processes.
Our Approach
Rathbone Results spent the first 12 months working with DT Fire Systems to identify a firm direction and vision for the company and develop an action plan to achieve it.
Business fundamentals were reviewed:
- Restructuring financial information.
- Establishing management accounts and combining them with other forecasting tools to provide visibility and understanding of turnover, gross profit, and overheads.
- Changing the company mindset from mark-up pricing to a gross profit mindset.
- This required redefining the cost structure and applying a relevant gross profit to achieve net profit goals, plus a process for project costing that streamlined client proposals.
- This overhaul required changes within the operation management software (Simpro) and accounting package (Xero) to allow information extraction and reporting.
The Results
+250%
Annual Turnover
In a COVID lockdown year, DT Fire Systems’ turnover stabilised and, after 12 months, runs at a 250% increase.
We supported DT Fire Systems with government funding and R&D; claims, to the point where net profit is positive and sits at 10 times the level a year ago – meaning DT Fire Systems is on track to achieve its vision.
From the original discussions about how DT Fire Systems sees their business in 3 years, we have won 2 years.
Rathbone Results’ work with DT Fire Systems is ongoing, and the action plan is still in the delivery phase. The financial foundations are almost complete, KPIs are in process, and turnover growth now needs to be managed while maintaining USPs and high-quality delivery.
The next phase of challenges includes recruiting additional operational and support staff, developing a marketing strategy, and freeing top management time to concentrate on business development actions.