Services

We provide small and medium size high-tech businesses with a host of tailored services designed to help them develop effective strategic plans, raise capital, improve organisational efficiency, empower their staff and make strategic organisational changes in order to optimise business performance.

Start-up support and fundraising

If you have a great idea but need investment to get it off the ground, or you are an existing business starved of funds to launch new products and services, then we can help you build a professional business plan to make your business stand out as a very attractive investment opportunity. This might include support for seeking bank loans, a private equity injection, or perhaps you need support to go crowdfunding or connecting with business angels.

Regardless, your prospectus must demonstrate that your business case is well-researched. It must be easy to digest, tested for robustness, and ultimately we need to show how the plan can be deployed using the resources you have available. Your finance providers need to clearly see how they will profit from your success. We measure the attractiveness of an investment opportunity by the rule “would we put our own money into this”?

Strategic planning for business growth

For many technology businesses, innovation and great ideas are not the problem. However bringing innovative concepts successfully to life requires careful and considered planning, with clear objectives, staged deliverables and complete agreement from all of the stakeholders. It is vital to make sure you perform comprehensive market research in order to be certain that you are serving a genuine customer need and that you have considered your routes to market and the channels through which you will sell your products and services.

Drawing on our technical and commercial expertise, we are adept at building detailed, executable business plans and then supporting you in the execution of the plan, from inception to completion. If you already have a strategy in place we can offer an independent review to test your assumptions – it is certainly better to find out in advance whether there are flaws in the plan and work out how to fix these before putting your project at risk.

Preparation for exit and the sale of your business

We have considerable experience in mergers and acquisitions and understand the processes leading up to the sale. Planning needs to start much earlier than you may think – ideally several years before the sale is scheduled to take place. There are many steps along the way, and your “executive mind-set” needs to be focussed on the end goal; “does what I am doing today make this business more attractive to an acquirer”?

We can help build your exit strategy, seeking to minimise costs, maximise revenue and profit, and avoid non-critical activities detracting from the core objective – which is to maximise shareholder value on exit. We will support the sale process, for example drafting your information memorandum, supporting the business through due diligence and leading the integration process post-acquisition.

Business efficiency programmes

Even the best-run businesses have room for improvement but maybe your management teams are too close to the day-to-day action, or just too busy to address the myriad minor issues that when pulled together can add up to efficiency impairment – the so-called “aggregation of marginal gains”. Often there may be reasons why managers and staff adhere to “traditional” processes – where an overhaul could bring dramatic efficiency improvements.

Turn-around and special situations

Logic dictates that desperate circumstances generally require drastic measures. Problems typically come down to missing top-line revenue targets, spiralling costs and process inefficiencies – impacting on profit and cash flow. Step one is to fix the top line if possible, but cost reduction is also a priority. We can start by identifying the reasons for missing revenue targets, for example it is an internal sales issue, or is the market impacted by outside factors such as strong competitors or economic issues?

We can also draft cost reduction programmes as often in smaller enterprises it is difficult for owner-managers to implement a retrenchment programme – it can be very hard for someone who has built a business with loyal staff to make the necessary cuts. However, once the business is financially stable it then makes sense to build a strategy to get back onto a growth trajectory.

Mergers, acquisitions and integration

For acquisitive businesses we can offer support through the M&A process, from initial identification of target companies and early approaches, through valuation and price negotiation, due diligence, purchase agreement, closure and through integration. Our speciality lies in our technical knowledge and deep understanding of the markets in which we operate.

Technical support

We have many years of experience in the high-tech sector, with a special focus on wireless mobile communications as applied to specific markets such as automotive, payments and the Internet of Things. We have worked with the majority of high tech businesses listed in the Fortune 500 and bring knowledge of the markets and also how the technologies are moving cross-market.

For example as motor vehicles become increasingly connected via mobile devices and modules, then the wireless and telecoms sector and automotive industries are melding – creating huge opportunities for those who are agile and technically adept.

Sales and marketing support

Our unique blend of technical knowledge, commercial acumen and entrepreneurial drive allows us to understand the markets we serve, identify opportunities and develop tactics for selling into the market. Every business needs to be market-led so it is vital to understand the marketplace and how it will evolve before making investment decisions.