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Cogent Analytics

Delivering Powerful Business Solutions

Mountain Creek Letter

We contracted with Cogent Analytics in an effort to help us determine how to grow our business. We have been stagnant in sales for several years , and after meeting with Matt & Andrew to discuss what Cogent could bring to the table, we decided to move forward and enlist their help.

Kevin came in and evaluated our situation over a couple of days, and quickly brought us to the realization that we weren’t tracking any of our processes or profit margins adequately. We were having issues, but had no way to really determine what we were doing wrong or why. At this point, we decided to move forward with Larry.

Larry spent several weeks with us breaking down our processes and helping us put them back together again, filling in the gaps. We determined that we were missing a lot of opportunities for sales due to a lack of follow-up and a drawn out estimating time frame . Larry led us through making the necessary changes to capture potential clients we previously let go, as well as streamlining our estimating process allowing us to shorten the time frame and track our profit margins.

We are now able to see where we are making the profit margins we need to get, and areas we may be losing out. In addition, we are now tracking many aspects of the business that feed into a general Operating Report that allows us to see the health of the company in one snapshot. Cogent has helped us create a much stronger company and given us the ability to make informed decisions in the future. We’re looking forward to our increased success and highly recommend Cogent Analytics as a business advisor/partner.

Sincerely,

Kent Burnett

Vice President, Mountain Creek Kitchen & Bath

BT Services Letter

I was asked by Mike Beadle to write a letter covering my opinion of the service provided by the Project Directors for my company, BT Services. Overall, I was very satisfied with the engagement and I believe that we are in a much better place today than we were prior to Cogent being on site. My only real concern moving forward has to do with the on-going allocation and use of tools to assist in in continue to put a lot of the practices we have discussed in place. Due to the type of engagement we had and the needs which were required to address in that time, we ended up spending a significant amount of time focusing on reorganization, company structure, job roles descriptions, and other various organization needs. This was absolutely essential for our success moving forward, but did limit the amount of time we had digging into the numbers. On top of that, I was required to miss 1 ½ weeks of our time with Mike for a conference.

Over the course of my time with Mike, I have received several tools to assist in various aspects of our company. Those include a labor burden calculation tool, adjustments to our current estimating spreadsheet to add break even and true profit on all bids, evaluation templates, a cash flow-analysis tool, and several other forms. Many of the tools are new to me and I have not had a great deal of time to get to know them, but we are spending a large amount of time in our final week discussing them further. Most of them will take getting used to, but I see the value in all of them so far.

As we have progressed through the engagement, our staff has been involved a great deal. There have been times that participation levels (or “buy-in”} has dropped or caused some heart burn, but I can honestly say that we are all moving in the same direction today. We still have a long way to go on breaking old habits and changing some individual mindsets, but I think we have the core team in place and everyone is buying in currently.

This process has been absolutely essential for me in changing my perspective on the company and on the direction we are going. For the most part, these issues were known and the overall vision was established, but the main impediment for the change was simply not knowing how to get there. Having the 3rd party perspective and leadership in those areas has been the most valuable thing that I have gotten out of all of this. I have received great feedback, support, and accountability in turning my vision into reality. As stated above, we have a long way to go, but for the first time in a very long time, I can say that I see us on a positive track.

I am absolutely committed to continuing this process as we move forward. We have made such a huge investment (financial , time, effort, etc.) into making this happen that not continuing would be a complete waste. I think the hardest part will be the weeks immediately following Mike’s departure as we transition into life without having him on site every day. I definitely understand that this is a long-term project and just because the engagement is over doesn’t mean that the overall project is. I’ m looking forward to staying in touch with Mike moving forward with our progress and to discuss further issues as they arise. It will also be nice to have him come back periodically to work in house for a week to ensure we are still on track.

Overall, this has been a great experience and I look forward to seeing the progress we can continue to make in the future.

Sincerely,
Tim Siek
Vice President, BT Services

Tuck-Hinton Letter – 2

We appreciate working with Cogent Analytics and working with Bob Hahn on our firms project. Having Bob in the office working alongside our team for two months, accomplished more than we were able to accomplish in the past two years.

We believe this consultation will positively improve the way we operate as a business. With our founding partners retiring at the end of this year, this has given Chuck, Josh and I, a good foundation to confidently and effectively lead the firm into the future.

I am very satisfied with the work Cogent did for our firm. It has allowed us to provide clarity of the roles and responsibilities for both the executive team and staff. We are now able to clearly focus more intently on assigned responsibilities instead of trying to tackle everything at once.

We look forward to continuing our relationship with Bob and will contact him with any needs as they arise.

Sincerely,
Mary Roskilly

Tuck-Hinton Letter – 1

Cogent Analytics was extremely professional throughout the entire consulting process – Merlin during the 3 day discovery process and Bob throughout the 9 week consulting project. During those 9 weeks, Bob worked closely with Mary, Chuck and I to develop a number of helpful tools, policies, and standard practices that I believe will prove invaluable in helping the three of us succeed as we transition into the full owners, and de facto the full leaders, of our firm starting in 2019.

My hope and expectation is that all will embrace these new organizational and structural improvements that Cogent helped to develop and implement at our firm. This will allow Mary, Chuck and I to operate more independently of the day to day pressures of project and overhead roles, and succeed in the execution and oversight of more strategic sales and marketing plans, more efficient operations work flows, and more measured and predictable financial procedures.

I am highly satisfied with the work Bob did for us, and look forward to a continued relationship with Cogent. We will undoubtedly need some support as we further implement all of the tools introduced, but are confident that we will be able to make them part of our daily, weekly and monthly routines. Thank you so much for providing us with the structure and focus we will need to be successful moving forward.

Sincerely,
Josh Hughes

Executive Transportation Letter

To Whom It May Concern:

Cogent Analytics, Jim Single and Brian Norton have given our business a new breath of life. A history of over 60 years in the industry we were stuck in the mindset of “it’s the way it has always been done.” Another company mantra was,” if it’s not broken don’t fix it.” Therefore, the discovery results were of no real surprise. We knew where the broken pieces were, but we were so busy with the business running us that we lost focus on the bigger picture of effectively running our business.

Change does not come without a substantial amount of pain or financial cost. It was a considerable investment that needed to be made in order for us to adequately move forward with our business growth. Jim effectively and gently moved us into these changes. He provided a great deal of support, reassurance and advice.

The reports and adjustments to QuickBooks’s that Jim incorporated allowed us to have a truer picture of our numbers and provide us the ability to better manage our business by financials. In discovering our “Breakeven” points for each business, Jim introduced us to ways in which to enhance our revenue by thinking outside of the box.

Noting our 235 employee roster and the amount of employee interruptions we were encountering, on a daily basis, Brian brought to our attention it was time for us to establish a Human Resources Department. With Jim’s guidance we moved forward with Brian’s suggestion and hired an experienced Human Resource Manager. In just three short weeks we can already feel the relief and the gift of time this new position has allotted to us.

Jim also lit a much needed fire under us to move forward with a new business model that we had spent way too much time just talking about. This business is due to go into operation December 1, 2018.

These next 12 months, as we move forward with new changes in place, will be the true test of our ROI for the Cogent project. Our goal is to remain on path by regularly reviewing our newly created Balance Sheets, P&L’s, Variance Reports, Key Indicator Report and Vehicle Utilization Reports.

Sincerely,
Tamara S. Bravo
President
Executive Transportation

T&D Moravits Letter

I am writing this letter to confirm my impressions and experience with Cogent during the past 6 months. The background for my initial interest was a fear of the effects of the Company’s rapid growth and increasing potential for future work. I became Majority Owner in the company in April of 2017 and was shocked at the revenue volume increases we were seeing and felt a lack of defined processes would only multiply the waste and confusion were we experiencing. I was interested in some third party support.

Timothy Christ initiated contact with me in May, 2018. At our first meeting, I found him to be quite attentive and very engaging regarding my thoughts on the current and desired future states of T&D Moravits. He captured the essence of our conversation extremely well. From this introduction, I agreed to the initial Discovery process.

David Drylie was the Sr. Business Analyst assigned to the discovery. It was evident from the first introduction that David had been down this road and knew exactly what he was looking for. I felt at ease allowing him to examine all aspects of our Company. The download I received at the end of the discovery was enlightening and informative. It convinced me to take a chance on the complete process improvement program.

I entered the full program very skeptical and telling myself that there was no way I would keep Cogent on through the full billing hours they had indicated. Initially, there was much more in depth discovery and analysis of virtually every person and process in the Company which produced little to no early deliverable return. I soon learned that this fact finding time period was crucial to the quality of the process I was involved in. As reports and process improvement opportunities were identified, solutions and in depth involvement of the Cogent team (Chuck Blume and Henrique dos Santos) with my staff and field crews made me realize this was an incredible chance to advance our methods of doing business to the next level and beyond.

I have been very impressed with the professionalism of each Cogent team member that has supported this effort. The level of data and process definition that I have seen and received is staggering. I have definitely been glad to have run the course of the onsite process and look forward to the regular checkups in the future. Challenges still remain for us as we grow and expand but I am confident that, with Cogent to support us, we will continue to succeed and thrive.

I highly recommend Cogent Analytics to anyone that has a vision for improvement of their processes and enhancement of their bottom line through efficiency and accountability.

Thank you Chuck for a job well done!

Sincerely,
Bill Roberts
President/CEO

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