Increased EBITDA by 2% of revenue during drastic revenue reduction (more than 30%).

• Found out in late January that the largest customer had made a significant forecast error by not netting their demand against their existing inventories – the result was a more than 30% reduction in the total company revenue forecast for the year they were already operating in.
• Based on more than two years of building a cohesive, trusting leadership team – the team rallied to develop a cost reduction plan in less than a week, and executed the changes within the next week.
• The only employees that left the organization were “C” players, and front-line supervisors would later state that they were glad they were able to make those changes.
• As a result of more than two years of developing a healthy, trusting culture employees at all levels engage in cost savings ideas and plans to reduce costs in line with the new revenue targets. These included, but were not limited to:
  • Executive leadership team members took temporary, voluntary salary reductions
  • Purchase requests and purchases were scrutinized for effectiveness and lower cost options
  • Employees at all levels were asked to enhance productivity and reduce/eliminate overtime
  • Employees at all levels were asked for additional cost savings ideas (which resulted in significant cost savings)
• Despite having just gone through the above process, the ensuing employee satisfaction survey showed a marked increase in overall employee satisfaction due to the transparency and honesty with which the process was handled.