The Company was a $30 million, multi-location home entertainment retailer.

Although the Company had grown and maintained profitability in a highly competitive marketplace, the Company was underperforming.

Fort Dearborn assisted management in preparing the Company’s first formal strategic business/operating plan:

–Evaluated marketplace and competition;

–Assessed Company operations and performance; and

–Reviewed capital structure and liquidity.

Through the planning process, Fort Dearborn identified several profit improvement opportunities including:

–Selectively increasing prices;

–Refining promotional programs;

–Leveraging underutilized in-house technology capabilities;

–Increasing managerial motivation via targeted incentive programs; and

–Improving timeliness and accuracy of financial reporting to monitor progress.

After implementing profit improvement opportunities identified by FDP, management was able to increase both volume and profitability:

– Sales up almost 10%;

– Gross margin increased over 2 percentage points; and

– Net income more than tripled.

FDP was instrumental in the successful sale of the Company, five years after the initial turnaround engagement.