Industry: Construction Building System Supplier
Turnover: $60m+
Ownership: Privately held, multi-family shareholders.
Project Trigger: Our client’s Board and shareholders were considering a plan to potentially exit within 5-7 years, but no documented strategy to drive growth and enterprise value. Active Directions worked with the Board to develop a strategic plan and then introduce the right capabilities at the right time to drive continuous value creation across the business including sales, new product development, finance and governance over 4 years. This has led to high-growth and exit readiness ahead of schedule. Importantly, as our client made the decision to exit, we supported Active Directions Strategic Adviser to transition to work directly with the client, bringing a high value role inhouse.
Scope:
- Developed 5 Year Strategy: Facilitated strategy planning to grow from GBP 25m to GBP 70m
- Interim Sales Transformation Management including embedding a consultant for 6 months to drive key improvements across sales and New product development
- CFO and Board Adviser: Provided Adviser for 2 years provide board and CEO advisory support on key strategic decisions
- Entry into US: Supported Investment decision to enter the USA market
- Acquisition assessment: Delivered accelerated assessments on various acquisition opportunities
- Decision support to exit: Supported the decision to choose now as the time to begin to prepare to exit and engage and corporate advisory firm (Big Four).
Outcomes:
- Active Directions embedded a strong approach to strategic decision making supporting a good cadence of governance including strategic reviews, meetings, reporting and communications.
- Establishing a key account management function to increase share of wallet with existing customers
- Co-developing a sales team structure around, Key Account Management, Prospecting large projects, Lead generation and management process and a rapid response quoting and sales process.
- Setting the foundation for a Sales and Operations alignment process
- Transformed the business approach to NPD to drive an aligned go to market approach and improve timeframes to achieve sales targets.
- Embedded repeatable approach to assessing new investment and acquisitions opportunities.
- Supported a highly valuable transition the Active Directions consultant from Consultant-to-Permanent role to drive exit process.
Starter Questions for Partners & Advisers:
- Do you have plan for exits in the strategic cycle and next 3-5 years?
- What steps does the client need to make now or later to ensure the business is exit ready?
- What capabilities do we need to introduce into the organisation across sales, marketing, operations, finance and corporate services to reduce the dependency on shareholders?
- What external resources can be introduced to accelerate progress or build internal capabilities.
Contact Active Directions to explore how a structured, long-term strategy can build value, strengthen performance, and position your business for a successful exit.