Jim Peters is a veteran in the world of business strategy and performance improvement. He is adept at creating and evaluating new business models, driving product positioning to meet customer demands, and ensuring sustainable performance through process change, pricing management and metric development. He also has extensive experience developing business portfolio strategies as well as negotiating alliances, acquisitions, investments, and divestitures, and implementing changes through post merger integration.
Jim has recently focused on assisting in the transformation of a high-end computer manufacturing company where, along with management, the company has reduced its overall cost structure by over 20%. This was accomplished over nine months and included changes in sales footprint, manufacturing operations, R&D reprioritization, sourcing optimization, and G&A structure.
Prior to that, he assisted in the business redesign of a competitive telecommunications company, where he has helped institute a new business plan for the business as well as instituting a culture of metrics management, sales productivity enhancement, operational cost reductions, and churn reduction. His team has also been critical in the cash management, cash forecasting, and working capital management of the business. In both cases, the projects helped gain access to significant new capital for the company.
Also, in the telecom/technology space, Jim assisted an Internet infrastructure company in their post-merger integration of a hosting and outsourcing company. The result was exceeding the anticipated merger benefits by 20%, and achieving them over 3 months faster than anticipated. As a result, and the entire merger was voted the Telecommunications Industry “Merger of the Year” in 2004 by Forrester Associates.
Prior to joining AlixPartners, Jim was a partner with McKinsey & Company, Inc., and serving clients on issues of performance improvement, business portfolio realignment, and product/market positioning. In performance improvement, Jim revamped the operations of a multi-billion dollar logistics/service company to improve efficiency, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce customer defections. This was accomplished through an integrated approach to operations, customer care and business redesign. Central to the turnaround was a customer-focused business model.
In business portfolio realignment, Jim has worked on both buy-side and sell-side, advising clients in the best ways to maximize value from its business portfolio. He has advised the seller on a wide array of issues, including whole company divestitures, divisions of major multinationals and specific assets. On the buy-side, Jim has also advised companies on significant asset investments/purchases (new product line to enhance distribution network), new alliances to meet market needs (multinational energy ventures), and whole company acquisitions (specialty power business, and consumer retail businesses).
Jim holds a Master of Business Administration degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia.