Executive Management Program

The Executive Management Program (EMP) is the ultimate SMA consultation offering.  It is a customized program covering any or all aspects of the client’s home building business. This program can concentrate on any multiple of the following business aspects for homebuilders…

The EMP is a customized program:

The EMP, most often, begins with a scorecard evaluation visit and the scope of work of the program is a result of the findings of this evaluation and the mutual agreement of client and SMA. 

The duration, scope of work, role played by SMA (often more than just the account executive) and the cost of the program are all customized to meet the specific client’s needs. 
This program does not have a standard scope of work but we will outline a typical scope below for the purposes of this web site program description.

Step One: The SMA Best Management Practices Scorecard Evaluation -

Again, most EMP clients begin with a scorecard evaluation.  During this two-day evaluation on the client’s site, the SMA Account Executive analyzes the company’s systems, procedures, forms, and reports in the ten functional areas of home building. The Account Executive uses SMA’s Best Industry Management Practices database as the benchmark to gauge the client company’s performance.

Within 10 working days of the SMA Scorecard Evaluation session, the Account
Executive delivers a written report to the client. Within the following week, the Account
Executive and client review the report in a teleconference and reach agreement on the key action items coming from the report.

The report often serves as the client’s road map for immediate and long-term process
improvement within the company. It also becomes an integral part of the client’s
strategic planning process.  The Scorecard is a pre-EMP engagement and carries a separate fee.  There is no obligation to continue into the EMP or any other SMA program upon completion of a scorecard engagement. 

Step Two: Scope of Work – Typical of Executive Management Program

• Client has use of the SMA budget template spreadsheet and help in completing the operating budget if necessary.  The client also has the use of SMA’s Critical Management Reporting (CMRS) database system.  SMA assistance is setting up this database is included in the contract when needed.  CMRS includes the following types of data collection and reporting.  Training on how to collect and record this data for management decision-making purposes is a large part of the EMP scope of work. 
• Job status of all contract and speculative homes
• Backlog reports of homes under contract
• Inventory reports of all speculative homes and time on market for completed units
• Gross profit reports sorted by
• Community or project
• Month
• Plan type
• Speculative vs. pre-sold contracts
• Time of construction against goals
• Job cost variance vs. budget
• Customer satisfaction
• Quality and Conditions data collection – measuring job site quality scores

• One bi-weekly 1-2 hour telephone call, with SMA, to review and guide the senior management team. (The call is an “on average” call and may need to be more often as necessary).  We use CRMS data to build the agendas for these meetings.

• One financial conference call per month to review financial statements and related reports
• Including gross profit reports
• Backlog reports
• Cash flow reports

• Other non-scheduled calls held as needed.

• Unlimited e-mail support for client management team by entire SMA consulting team

• Ongoing support for senior management team with client calls scheduled as necessary in advance with other members of the SMA consulting team. We have designed this portion of the program give client senior managers the tools to communicate with other SMA team members.

• We will also offer, for the duration of this agreement, discounts on additional site visits (beyond the one site visit included within this proposal) should they be necessary for the engagement. Fee for these visits start at $3,500 per day but are deeply discounted for EMP clients.

• Over the next 12 months we will work on the following issues (this is a sample list, in which the customization takes place to match each client’s needs):
• Develop financial and operational reporting systems
• Monthly financial statement reviews
• CDCI software set up of plans and options
• CDCI scheduling module set up
• Sales team management and sales agent hiring
• Work with senior management team to implement CMRS database to track job status
• Work with senior management team to finalize job roles within the company
• Work with the purchasing and estimating department to get best practices in place ASAP.
• Select and implement new sales and prospect tracking software
• Set up production accountability system complete with
• Benchmark measurements
• Reporting system
• Q&C system and training
• Time of construction metrics and reporting
• Customer satisfaction survey implementation and reporting
• Job cost variance from budget metrics and reporting
• Other mutually agreed upon management improvement projects.

EMP clients also receive deeply discounted tuition fees to SMA educational conferences, seminars and workshops.  See the Educational Services pages for details. 

In short, SMA assigns an account executive – either Bob Whitten, Mike Benshoof or Russ Neumann - will serve as a long distance member of the client’s executive management and planning team and he makes the entire SMA consulting team available to the EMP client to assist in any specific areas of expertise.  

Step Three: Business Planning Facilitation -

Part of the EMP is a formal annual business and strategic planning process. SMA preaches
formal annual planning as a “best management practice,” and including the Account
Executive is often a catalyst for ingraining the planning process in the client’s corporate
culture.

SMA makes their Orlando training center available for a one to three day planning session to EMP clients annually.   The client’s SMA Account Executive participates in the planning session at no additional charge.
SMA customizes its scope of work for this step. It can range from the Account Executive
attending the planning sessions like any other planning team member to SMA facilitating
the process, providing the planning workbooks, documenting the planning session notes,
and producing the first-draft business plan.

SMA Travel Expense Policies:

Whenever an SMA associate travels to a client location as part of an engagement or to a
third-party location at the client’s request, the following expenses are additional to the
cost of the engagement:

SMA often requests travel expense deposits in advance of the travel. All expenses are netted against the final client invoice for the travel engagement.