Case Study: How a Service Industry Company Transformed its Business

Problem

A property management company wanted to scale from 60 units to 360 units. However, they could not due to their cumbersome work processes. Even though the business was a franchise, they didn’t have their work flow properly aligned. 

The Owner was too involved in the day to day operations, often having to micro-manage his Property Managers. He didn’t have enough time in the day to deal with new clients or grow to the size they desired.

Method

Industrial Solutions facilitated the small management team to map out the work sequence involved in renting and maintaining units for rental property clients. We discovered several instances where Property Managers needed to consult the Owner for answers, permissions, or task completion.

After mapping the entire process, the group walked back through the process step by step. They brainstormed ideas to eliminate the need for the Property Manager to reach out to the Owner for help. They changed the work sequence to reduce back and forth between departments and eliminated redundant steps. 

By changing the work sequence, combining forms used, modifying the duties of different roles to balance the work, etc. By streamlining the process, we ensured that the property managers seldom had to bother the owner for direction. This enabled them to carry out their responsibilities smoothly and efficiently.

The team developed an action Item list of over 30 ideas for the team to complete.

Outcome

Industrial Solutions worked with this client for just 3 days over the course of a few weeks. Once the team had ticked off their action items and implemented the new process, the Owner noticed a more significant time saving than expected–not to mention a spike in service quality.

“We’ve found that 360 units wasn’t a good goal, we need to triple that!”