The pandemic forced many executives to re-think every aspect of their business. In some cases, it meant pivoting away from historic core business activities. In other cases, it simply meant there was no time to conduct business as usual and processes were streamlined and re-engineered. Other companies thrived with existing strategies.
Whatever your pandemic strategy, where do you go from here?
We can help you develop and select from various strategic options to find your best opportunities to grow revenue and add to your company’s bottom line.
Each Osborne Group principal has held senior leadership positions throughout their career. They have the wisdom built from decades of experience to help guide others to similar levels of success.
Our principals have worked in a broad range of organizations, sectors and functional areas holding positions including CEO, COO, CFO, SVP, EVP, executive director and general manager in small and medium enterprises (SME) as well as large multi-national companies. Their roles have included responsibility for governance, strategic planning, finance, operations, human resources, procurement/supply chain, capital projects, information technologys, marketing and communications, sales management and training, organizational design and development and succession planning.
One of the strengths of the Osborne Group is, that in addition to providing strong leadership as individuals, our principals can come together in multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary teams to focus on developing and delivering comprehensive business strategies.
- Strategic Planning
- Succession Through a Management Buy-out
- Sparking Sales & Revenue Growth
- Increasing Company Value Through The Value Builder System
Considering the changes forced upon us by the pandemic, many businesses are rethinking their existing plans. Others are now realizing they need to have a simple, actionable plan to help them navigate through a changing world. In either case, business planning approaches of the past 20 years are seen as lacking flexibility, being too static and overly time-consuming.
Osborne Group Principal Garry Wood explains how to prevent getting discouraged or bogged down in the complexity of building a business plan.
For more on how to approach strategic planning in your business, reach out to us today.
Osborne principals have worked on many succession planning initiatives that have led to management buyouts. In these cases, the key to success for both the current owner and the new owner is the ongoing prosperity of the business. The emphasis should always be on a transparent and workable process with well-defined expectations of both parties.
Providing Guidance Through a Management Buyout
We recently worked with a small business owner to help define the strategic direction for the company and lead them through the implementation of the plan. This included reviewing the ownership structure, financing options, restructuring the management team and taking on the role of COO for a short time, all with the goal of maximizing returns to the majority shareholder. This culminated in implementing an exit strategy for the owner, including entertaining a buy-out initiative from the new management group.
The work included:
- The development and completion of an initial non-binding buy-out proposal detailing price, terms, and conditions. This allowed both parties to understand/negotiate the transition elements and costs before engaging expensive legal and accounting services to execute a binding agreement and a buy/sell agreement. It addressed timing to transition from the current owner’s management control to the new owners.
- The development of a timetable to set up “Newco” with various ownership/management terms. During this step, we helped the Newco participants define their operating and governance structure.
- We provided documentation of a set of business results, expectations and responsibilities during the period of management and ownership transition to avoid any transition surprises.
- In addition to structuring the management buyout, we reviewed the existing legal structure of the initial and proposed companies and provided recommendations to simplify the conveyance of equity of the overall business in a workable and tax-effective way.
As a result of the time spent as COO, the Osborne principal was able to review the responsibilities of key personnel, particularly with respect to current responsibilities and how these would change and when.
Contact The Osborne Group if you are considering selling your business.
Osborne principals have deep experience managing multi-faceted sales and marketing programs that have achieved aggressive sales and revenue targets. They can help you analyze who your best customers are from a revenue perspective and how to prioritize those clients to drive your bottom line.
Are you ready to pivot to new target markets or is it time to re-prioritize among existing customers? We will look at all aspects of your business lines to help find new revenue sources and improve your margins.
We know what questions to ask to help guide you to better sales and marketing results.
- Is your brand resonating and are your products well-positioned for growth?
- What is the contribution margin from your best performers?
- Is your growth coming from high yield margin items or other products?
- How do you know your marketing programs are succeeding?
- Are they generating real leads for your sales funnel?
- Can your sales growth be easily attributed to leads generated from marketing programs?
- Is your sales model fully aligned with the markets you are pursuing?
- Which platforms are contributing to your KPI’s?
- Which are converting to signed contracts?
Osborne principals have helped increase sales and bottom-line revenue growth for Canadian companies in a variety of sectors. Whether your business requires repositioning with a new brand identity or a new sales strategy, we can help.
Contact The Osborne Group to discuss how to spark sales and revenue growth.
If you are a business owner who’s thinking of selling your business, you need to carefully navigate the challenges associated with the transition. A trusted advisor can provide sound guidance and reduce stress through the entire process.
The Osborne Group are licensed partners with Value Builder. The experts at Value Builder System™ have worked with over 60,000 business owners over the last eight years to understand what it takes to have a successful exit.
The Value Builder PREScore System assessment tool answers these questions and prepares you for a productive conversation about your business’s value.
En savoir plus about Value Builder.