About
Paul Vragel founded 4aBetterBusiness 25+ years ago to help companies develop immediate, enthusiastic buy-in to change and achieve large-scale improvements in productivity and growth.
Success in a tough assignment early in his career (see Origin Story) led to identifying two core principles, still in use in 4aBetterBusiness today:
- 90% of the issues that waste time and money in a company and produce poor results are embedded in the company’s processes and interactions. Important caveat: these often work differently than documented or expected.
- Employees are the world’s experts at knowing what they actually do every day – their local processes
The caveat to principle 1 is significant. Reasons we often see for processes diverging from documentation or expectation include workarounds to IT systems that don’t support business operations (Excel is a popular workaround), workarounds to ineffective/inefficient processes, over-reliance on tribal knowledge and issues related to management of change and growth.
Paul has led (in Interim COO and consulting roles) collaborative achievement of transformational improvement in company operating and financial performance with privately held companies (including private equity) and mid-market units of Fortune 500 companies (including Magna, Dover and Itochu), complex manufacturing (automotive, aerospace, general industrial), distribution/logistics and services, US and International, including multi-site operations and recovery from failed acquisitions in M&A transactions.
Client results have included:
- Resolved 75 issues in 30 days
- 30% increase in EBITDA in 6 months, without firings or increase in sales
- Pursuing and achieving, within 12 months, first-ever business with Toyota
- Enabling doubling sales and tripling EBITDA in 18 months with the same management & support staff
- Raising on-time delivery performance from 50% to 96% while reducing inventory by 22%
- Raising valuation by $millions, within 18 months, in company sale to a Fortune 500 buyer.
See examples of benefits to clients in the Cases page on this site.
Prior to founding 4aBetterBusiness, Paul Vragel worked for Amoco Corporation (now BP), in management roles in IT and the Marine Department.
In his last position with Amoco, he led new technology evaluation for the Corporate Information Technology Department, with global responsibility for reviewing and recommending technology to the corporation, at a time of massive change from mainframe to PC-related technology. The group Paul led developed an innovative solution which enlisted the willing aid of thousands of employees, gathered their evaluations and reports, and made this information available to anyone in the corporation, globally (pre-internet!) to increase the speed of evaluation and implementation of technology, at lower risk.
Prior work as a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer in the Marine Department included managing ship construction in Spain (at age 22), resolving issues with overseas manufacturers and suppliers to that construction program. Paul assisted Production, Refining and Minerals with marine-related projects, gaining their trust and saving over $50 million on one project alone. He developed a corporate oil tanker fleet replacement plan, including analysis of oil markets, global ship fleet analysis, port facilities, review of construction proposals from shipyards in many areas of the world, and developing the accompanying financial analysis and report to the board.
Previously, Paul was employed by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock (now Huntington Ingalls). He led successful development and implementation of the company’s first-ever analog to digital conversion, successfully accomplished in a major production area of the shipyard.
Paul has a BSc in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from Webb Institute (salutatorian), an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt and an ISO 9001 Lead Auditor. He has also done coursework in Group Dynamics.