Campfire Interactive, Inc. (Campfire), provider of a leading solution for portfolio profitability management in the automotive sector and Plante Moran, one of the nation’s largest certified public accounting, tax, consulting, and wealth management firms, are announcing their strategic relationship to provide automotive industry clients with world-class software and consulting services for measurable and sustained improvements in profitability and related business practices.
Delivering unprecedented accuracy and insight into profit metrics, Campfire software turns data into information for fast, informed, and confident business decisions. Revenues and costs are integrated in a single system for immediate transparency on the impact of changes in volume, cost, price, capacity, timing information, and many other variables that affect profitability. The company’s product offerings include solutions in business opportunity management, sales forecasting, market share management, quoting, costing, pricing, change cost management, capacity visibility, and program and issues management.
Plante Moran’s automotive value chain team and cost & margin intelligence consulting practice will support the growing demand for and application of Campfire software. Services available to Campfire customers include software implementation and various consulting services on business and product strategy, strategic cost and pricing analytics, and business and operational process optimization.
Driving Value
With digital transformation and restructuring of business functions becoming essential to innovation, competition, and growth in today’s dynamic automotive market, this collaboration provides Campfire clients with a unique opportunity to pair market-leading software solutions with proven implementation services and industry-specific business consulting solutions.
“Our automotive market knowledge sets us apart and allows us to solve complex and costly problems within the industry,” said Campfire President and CEO, Pradeep Seneviratne. “Identifying a partner whose offerings and expertise complement that of our own was critical in allowing our customers to maximize their software investment while realizing opportunities for improved profitability. Plante Moran has earned their reputation in equipping clients to respond to the industry’s transformation and we are excited to introduce this expertise to automotive suppliers seeking to take control of their profitability.”
“Accurate cost and price analytics are essential to optimizing supplier profitability,” explained Plante Moran partner and automotive practice leader, Daron Gifford. “Campfire captures all of the cost and price inputs, enabling automotive suppliers to better formulate and manage their product portfolios and streamline complex business processes. We’re excited for the opportunity to introduce Campfire to our clients and offer Plante Moran’s extensive auto expertise and capabilities to deliver even greater value to Campfire customers.”
Successful Roots
The relationship stems from an engagement between Plante Moran and Neapco, a leading global supplier of automotive driveline solutions. Plante Moran was retained to assist the manufacturer in a program to:
· Understand current quoting, costing, and change management processes
· Document inefficiencies and desired improvements
“Our work with Plante Moran included the assessment of our processes for sales forecasting, quoting, costing and capacity visibility,” said Erik Leenders, Neapco Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Strategy. “Once we had a clear vision for this process, it was also apparent that our current tools would not be sufficient. Our evaluation process for third-party software was extremely thorough, and Campfire was among several solutions assessed. While software features and capabilities were obviously important, a number of other considerations such as implementation methods, customer support, best practices, and of course customer feedback would factor into the decision. Ultimately, this led to the selection of Campfire in late 2020.”
He added, “Plante Moran’s software-agnostic process improvement recommendations reflecting industry best practices, along with our internal evaluations, recommendations from other customers, and the ability to implement the software without outside resources having to be on-site especially in the midst of a pandemic were determining factors in our selection of Campfire.”
