“Currie Best Practices Groups” are made up of equipment distributors who are committed to excellence and achieving
top-level performance within their respective industries through utilization of the Currie Financial Model. Groups discuss the unique challenges and opportunities within their industry, share insights, successes, failures, and brainstorm solutions.
Below we share some of the insights from our 2022 Best Practices Groups.
2022: Shared insights from Currie Best Practices Groups
2022 was a year of tremendous opportunity. Growth was massive, and the companies in our Best Practices Groups have been busting at the seams and breaking through with intense diversification strategies: new industries, expansion of products and services within existing customer base, developing marketplaces, and acquisitions.
“Double digit growth” is an understatement for these participants.
But what happens in 2023? Where is all this momentum going, and is the growth sustainable?
From the shareholder’s perspective high performing companies are expected to maintain a 15% level of growth year over year, measured over a ten-year range. This same expectation applies to the earnings of a well established company within a mature industry.
From an economic perspective, we can count on experiencing an economic recession approximately every seven years. We’ve seen such events referred to as a “depression” or “panic.” Many of these periods, when looking on a global scale, have been associated with war, natural disaster, or political unrest. Conditions currently present in our world today that continue to impact our global economy are: the Covid 19 pandemic, foreign nuclear weapon development, large-scale migration, and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
In recent dealer group meetings, we talk about it all and have shared predictions, dread, and optimism.
- Will the employment marketplace continue to improve?
- What will happen with fuel prices?
- Will equipment and components become more
readily available? - Are we raising parts and service prices appropriately
to capture all opportunity?
None of us have a crystal ball and there are many factors beyond our control. One of the benefits of working with the Currie Model is the ability to manage risk. Currie strategy includes tracking and managing critical KPI’s to ensure that we hold steady during a recessionary economy.
The following eight elements of the Currie Model are the most essential to discuss, track and manage within your organization, in the current economy:
- Return on Assets
- Absorption: the ability of aftermarket gross profit dollars to absorb total dealership expense
- Inventory and Asset Management: overall asset turns and inventory performance at Currie Model for each inventory segment
- Debt to Equity Ratio
- Working Capital Turns
- Accounts Receivable control
- Employee productivity: this KPI varies depending on the department or function but could be metrics such as headcount, revenue and/or gross profit per salesperson, etc.
- Growth and revenue trends, forecasting, and coverage
As we enter 2023, we’ll celebrate our 50th year in business. We’ve received numerous requests from companies like yours to join a Best Practices Group and it is our goal to fulfill those requests this year. Some dealers will be matched and added to existing groups but there will also be brand new groups added in various industries such as Dock and Door, Batteries, Systems, Retail Tool, HVAC, and Tractor Trailer.