ADVISORY CASE STUDIES | midmarketsecurities

Situation: Struggling to integrate acquired companies

A strategy of growth by acquisition has resulted in taking over two businesses during the last twelve months.
Each acquisition is expected to deliver synergistic benefits and operational efficiencies.
CEOs of both acquired companies vying for domination by talking up the strategic nature of their respective parts of the business. The CEOs lack a plan of combined action with full management backing
Management is not accustomed to integrating new businesses, as growth to date has been totally organic.
Financial incentives and continued employment for the management team are tied to achieving the financial goals of the acquisitions.

Solution: Created realistic integration plan and coached executives

Conducted an informal SWOT analysis on both individuals. Realized they had complimentary skills, which was the reason why they were both retained.
Mentored and coached the CEOs to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses and persuaded them to accept roles that were in line with their strengths.
Created a realistic and aggressive integration plan with input from executive management and the board.
Positioned the plan with management team to refine further and obtain buy-in.
Supported management in the execution phase over a 12-month period to deliver against agreed benchmarks and earn their bonuses.

Situation: Challenged by consolidating financials of disparate business units.

Market leader in specialty chemicals for the steel manufacturing and paper industry grew rapidly by acquiring mining companies across the United States.
Each acquired mining company was still run autonomously with its own billing, accounting AR and AP functions.
“Monthly Financial Close” process taking up to 15 days to consolidate figures from over 17 disparate systems and accounting departments. Process is very labor intensive and a major source of stress for the organization.
Billing function carrying a huge backlog with bills not being sent out for orders placed up to six months, which resulted in over 50 million stuck in unbilled orders.

Solution: Addressed billing/accounting platform and workflow.

Reviewed the Close Process and concluded that it is on a path to further deterioration and would gradually become unacceptably long.
Visited and analyzed accounting departments where staff had serious concerns about jobs. They also viewed corporate accounting as distant and detached from their operations.
Created a shared service center and consolidated billing and AR functions.
Upgraded the accounting system and migrated all units to the new platform.
Retrained staff to align with revamped job descriptions. Most duplicate jobs were saved by reassigning them to billing.
Unbilled items brought down to less than one week.

Situation: Company’s top line growth is hindered.

Company started by two engineers who saw a gap in the market while working for a large regional utility company.
Engineers left the large utility to pursue their dream of creating a successful software company that grew to $10 million in revenue over a 10-year period
Revenue growth levelled off three years ago and the owners were also facing challenges from new upstart providers.
Founders are engineers and feel that they do not have the necessary business development and sales acumen to grow the business beyond the initial level. They had previously hired several sales and marketing directors who had not delivered.
Owners feel that they have tried everything and are at the limits of their capability, but they are unwilling to sell the business.
Owners, who are baby boomers, have personal needs to ‘cash-out’ without giving up the control.

Solution: Identified Buy-In Partner with needed Talent Expertise

Conducted a SWOT analysis that indicated substantial opportunity, which could only be realized with the infusion of financial and human capital
Company needed a heavy hitter business development professional who could create and manage key alliances.
Short-listed suitable business executives from our network who would buy into the business and become working partners.
After a “dating period’, negotiated a buy-in by an executive, who brought the talent and skillsets that were missing.
Negotiated private equity investment to fund the three-year growth plan and allow owners to cash out and still retain over 50% equity in the business.