Process Improvement Consulting

Business Process Assessment and Redesign

As companies grow, needs change and business processes must be adjusted to support the expanding business. Far too often these changes are made in a patchwork manner and result in processes that are costly, inefficient or ineffective in meeting the company's needs. When performing a process improvement engagement, we evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of each process, focusing on the following:

• Goals, objectives and effectiveness of measuring and monitoring the progress
• Organization structure and the alignment of the company's strategies with that structure
• Staffing levels, roles, responsibilities, knowledge and personnel training
• Use of technology to enable process improvement
• Design of processes, including policies, procedures and related internal controls
• Segregation of duties
• Identification of potential risks and opportunities associated with each process improvement area
   

Performance Management and Scorecarding

Our performance management and scorecarding reviews define the business processes, methodologies and technologies organizations use to monitor, analyze and plan business performance.
 

Business Health Checkup^TM

To help companies looking to strengthen their financial position, Brown Smith Wallace has developed the Business Health Checkup^TM. Our tool provides companies with an assessment that identifies opportunities for cost control and reduction, process improvement, tax and estate planning, along with financial analysis and structuring. From this assessment, we can help you develop a step-by-step action plan that can be the foundation of your company's long-term success and enable the business to effectively move forward, even in a challenging economic environment.
 

Internal Control Evaluation

COSO defines internal control as a process, affected by an entity’s board of directors, management and other personnel, designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the following categories:

• Effectiveness and efficiency of operations
• Reliability of financial reporting
• Compliance with applicable laws and regulations

Our internal control evaluation is designed to help your management team determine whether it has put in place the correct business process and controls that effectively mitigate risks to the company goals and objectives. We also evaluate whether there are opportunities to incorporate more cost-effective controls through the implementation of application controls or continuous monitoring solutions.
 

Retirement Plan Fiduciary Assessment

Plan sponsors are required by law to understand and fulfill fiduciary responsibilities owed to their retirement plans. Failure to adopt fundamental practices can result in regulatory intervention and potentially significant personal liability for plan fiduciaries.

Benefit Plans Plus, an affiliate company of Brown Smith Wallace, LLC, helps your company take the prudent approach by focusing solely on the interests of plan participants and their beneficiaries. With our snapshot assessment of current fiduciary compliance structures and processes, you will be able to immediately identify new opportunities as well as improve procedures and systems - saving you time and money.
 

Duplicate Payment Review

As companies grow and transaction volumes increase, the risk associated with making duplicate payments to vendors also becomes more likely. The underlying causes for this often include multiple vendor accounts, not having system controls to identify potential duplicate payments, employees not being appropriately trained on how to enter invoices into the system and multi location invoice processing within a company. Even well controlled companies find they make duplicate payments.

These engagements typically start with an opportunity analysis. We obtain disbursement files for a period of time (e.g., one to two years) and analyze the data for potential duplicates. With this information, you can investigate the validity of potential payments and obtain reimbursement from vendors, where appropriate.
 

Enterprise Risk Assessment

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the activities of an organization in order to minimize the effects of risk on an organization's capital and earnings. Enterprise risk management expands the process to include not just risks associated with accidental losses, but also financial, strategic, operational and other risks. The following factors should be considered by organizations looking to implement ERM:

• Aligning management and the board in their understanding and approach to risk
• Increasing the focus on managing risks associated with strategic objectives
• Improving the risk weighted approach to evaluating capital decisions
• Increasing ownership and accountability for managing risks
• Pointing out opportunities where an organization may be able to increase risk
   

Fraud Prevention, Detection and Quantification

During depressed economic conditions, we see an increase in embezzlement. If management suspects fraud, we can investigate and quantify the fraud and determine the magnitude of any losses. On a proactive basis, we help your company perform fraud risk assessments with the intent of identifying your fraud risk exposure. These fraud risk assessments help management identify areas where they are susceptible to fraud and help you put in place policies and procedures to reduce these risks.
 

Design and Evaluation of Insurance and Risk Management

We perform a complete review of the insurance program in place at your organization. It is our goal to be able to streamline coverages and save premium dollars.

The most expensive and vulnerable insurance coverages are workers' compensation insurance and medical coverage. A good risk management program can lower the ultimate cost of insurance for your workers compensation.

We help you evaluate the possibility of reducing premiums by evaluating the feasibility of self insurance via risk sharing or creation of a captive insurance company.
 

Revenue Leakage Assessment

This service focuses on evaluating your company's revenue processes from the time the order is given to the time the cash is received. This helps to identify areas where your company may not be realizing all of its potential revenue.

Opportunities often exist where valid charges are not being billed to customers, discounting or other pricing practices are not well controlled and trials or other zero value orders are being used excessively and/or inappropriately.
 

Human Resources Communications Consulting

We can develop reduction in force (RIF) communications, provide adverse impact analyses and assist in preparing layoff criteria and analyses.
 

Talent Management Assessment

These assessments are designed to help evaluate and recommend necessary changes to a company's approach to attracting, retaining and motivating management and employees. These assessments focus on the following areas:

• Organization structure – Do the right roles exist within the company and are they appropriately staffed?
• Responsibilities and competencies – What skills and behaviors are needed to further the strategy and success of the organization?
• Performance management – How effective are goal setting, training, development and performance evaluation processes?
• Compensation models – Do they create appropriate incentives and how do your compensation models compare against similar companies?
• Organizational review - We assess the current performance and development plans for professional staff.