THE $80M BLUEPRINT: SCALING WITHOUT SYSTEMIC COLLAPSE
How "Architectural Autonomy" handled 90X growth volume while reducing the operational cost-to-serve by 94%.
90x Volume Capacity w/ 50% less staff
$500k to $78M revenue growth in 36 months
99.97% On-Time-Complete (Up from 50%).
“Tim is a systems guy who can translate complex situations into understandable solutions. He built the infrastructure that created a nimble e-commerce powerhouse within a massive corporation.”
FRICTION vs. ARCHITECTURE
The Problem: Scaling Friction. At $500k, the "build-to-order" process was human-dependent and error-prone. As volume grew, the "Cohesion Tax" threatened to eat the margins and destroy the customer experience.
STRUCTURE: Architected a 3-phase IT "Scaffolding" that removed human touchpoints from the order-to-manufacturing flow. Integrated disparate systems into a single "Source of Truth.“
VISION: Replaced "Vibe-based" marketing with recession-proof pricing schemas and need-state segmentation.
EXECUTION: Implemented SQL-led data marts and Hyperion OLAP dashboards to move from "lagging indicators" to "predictive controls."
“Scale is a stress test for your architecture. If your processes require ‘Heroic Effort’ from your people to function, you aren’t scaling, you’re just accelerating a crash.”
Annual Revenue was able to go from $500,00 to $78,000,000 per year in three years.
Cost-To-Serve went from 50% of Revenue to 3% of Revenue.
Net Promoter Score went from 10 (volatile) to 55 (world class.)
On-Time & Complete went from 55% to 99.97%.
By using Algorithmic Accountability instead of manual oversight, we kept the business flat during the 2008 crash while the nearest competitor dropped 75% and exited the market.
“Tim understands both Marketing and Supply Chain functions and how IT can be effectively leveraged to grow the top and bottom lines. His efforts make the team stronger.”
Dramatic Results Come from Radical Thinking
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Mars - MYM&M’s®
Business Process Manager leading sales and delivery operations, customer service, systems, data, KPIs, and marketing breakthroughs.
Tim’s Big Results:
Instrumental in driving capacity for growth from $500k to &80MM a year in three years.
Initiated target audience and need-state research, and then later developed recession-proof pricing schemas to protect the growth we created.
Drove process and systems strategy that increased on-time-and-complete from 50% to 99.97% and reduced cost-to-serve from 50% of revenue to 3% of revenue.
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Three phases of IT System architecture and system planning. Phase 1 - Stabilize and integrate existing systems. Phase 2 - Create, procure or modify existing application integration for 2–3-year optimization. Phase 3 - Identify an optimal ERP and supporting applications plan for long term sustainability.
Led the rapid and ground-breaking operations, service, and systems changes to support the growth of MYM&M’S® Personalized Candies from $500k to $80MM a year within 3 years while (by) improving On-Time and Complete (achieved 99.9%) and Net Promoter Score (achieved 55) through data-led process changes.
Operational success enabled by incident management, problem management, and change management protocols, tracking and prioritization. Initially built a team of 100 but was able to handle 9 times the volume with 50 people after the optimization changes.
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Led and executed the original customer segmentation and need-state analysis that defined our go-to-market strategy, and seasonal product offerings.
Designed, executed, and analyzed a multi-dimensional price testing strategy for MYM&M’S® while I was also creating the blueprints for our SAP implementation. The results led to a 100% increase in sales for our core product right before the 2008 economic breakdown. Kept business flat when our competitor dropped 75% and dropped out for a few years.
Created and managed marketing database and attribution systems. Also drove vertical price tests to identify unattributed halo effect of non-digital media.
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Used Data Bridger, Toad, and Oracle to create data marts and views to be consumed by our Hyperion OLAP user community that neither e-Commetry nor Data Bridger had been able to create.
Developed and managed KPI strategy and execution for General Manager and each Dearment Head.
Consistent reframing of operational issues using data. “Saving two seconds on the shipping process but cross-mailing 20% of packages is not good.” “Reducing five seconds of candy mixing but destroying FIFO due-date layers is not helpful to the customer.”
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Rapid expansion of team required finding stars from the production floor (tying bows on wedding favors) and growing them into team leads, supervisors, and managers to support the full operations gamut.
Mentored marketing and IT colleagues on how to reframe standard CPG and e-Commerce best practices and how to identify proper integration paths into our high-volume, personalized, build-to-order process.
“I have worked with Tim in MARS Direct for the past 4 years on the MY M&M’S direct business. Tim has demonstrated big solutions thinking across multiple disciplines - his efforts have driven significant growth and understanding within our new business. He understands both Marketing and Supply Chain functions and how IT can be effectively leveraged to grow the top and bottom lines. Tim is functionally deep in business process, IT integration, customer care and pricing strategy. He is a team player who works well up, down and across the organization. His efforts make the team stronger.”
“Tim was a tremendous asset for Mars Direct during my entire tenure with the company. He was the rare type of business manager who also had a comprehensive understanding of the technical processes involved in running the business. Because of his cross-functional skills, Tim served as the liaison between the operations and web development group.
Tim always impressed our team with his ability to accomplish technical tasks such as writing complex SQL statements for reporting purposes. He’s also a very organized person, a tireless worker, and a wonderful public speaker.”
“Tim knows a lot. More importantly, he knows how to get a lot done. Tim is a systems guy who can translate complex situations into understandable solutions. And he built the infrastructure that created a nimble e-commerce powerhouse within a massive corporation.”
