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Centennial Christian Learning Center (CCLC) is a licensed child care facility and pre-school in Colorado. They offer year-round care for full time, part time, and drop-in visits. CCLC has been in operation for well over a decade and has seen multiple directors in that time frame. This resulted in operational inefficiencies that were easy to feel, difficult to identify, and even harder to fix.
PROVIDING IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS AND DISCOVERING DEEPER ISSUES
Systematic Solutions (SYS) was trusted to help decipher and solve these issues. SYS started by creating an enrollment tracking solution monitoring the number of students per classroom per hour to predict and ensure staffing regulations were fulfilled. This solution prevented classes from overfilling and, more importantly, pinpointed openings for new families to join.
Will Kallhoff
Executive Director
CCLC
“Systematic Solutions changed the way we handle everything in our day-to-day business.”
SYS then started a revenue per student analysis that identified an even bigger issue. After breaking down the revenue to an hourly basis, it became obvious the hourly rate per student varied massively and CCLC was actually losing money with some students. Once this issue was raised to CCLC executives, they requested a deeper study and the data showed the hourly rate per student range varied by more than 250%. In an effort to understand the real cost per student, CCLC’s financial statements were cross-referenced, allowing the cost to be broken down to a per unit basis. This gave a clear and precise picture of the total costs for each classroom and how much income was needed to turn a profit.
“I was blown away by the amount of things that Systematic Solutions could do with our data. Again, we had this data at our fingertips, but they were incredibly talented at being able to put those numbers into actionable and understandable items.”
FIXING THE PROBLEMS
SYS looked at local schools offering comparable programs, qualifications, and demographics to baseline the market-rate tuition for a similar school. From this research, SYS created a new pricing matrix with standard rates accounting for teacher-to-student ratios and appropriate discounts for increased enrollment hours.
After the new pricing matrix was assembled, the rates for current students were simulated and compared against their previous rates. The differences in cost per student were graphed and the majority of students were going to see a minor price increase, while a few would actually see a price decrease.
The data showed that the total revenue for CCLC only needed to increase by 2% to ensure the school turned a profit from each individual student. Such specific detail allowed CCLC to be profitable and competitive in the marketplace, while also keeping existing families happy. This pricing matrix was accompanied by a new budget baseline showing that the new figures would return the school to the black, without burdening any individual student.
“Systematic Solutions was able to both increase our gross income and reduce our expenses.”
MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER
"Systematic Solutions was always available to answer questions. When we got into the project and new questions emerged, they were able to help us figure out the right questions to ask and act on them. We knew from Day 1 that they were committed to our success and we felt that focus every step of the way."
The board of directors for the school were thrilled with the new proposal and findings. They had been working on similar ideas, but lacked the data to validate their assumptions. Having the data confirm their gut feelings was a huge relief and now they had clear solutions based in concrete facts. As such, CCLC adopted the new pricing structure for the 2019-2020 school year and is happy to see that the budget is in the black for the first time in years.
HERE TO HELP
Part of what makes Systematic Solutions unique is that we truly love what we do. We love helping people and we love solving data puzzles so naturally SYS was born. Give us a chance to prove we can help you and your data too.