New investors or new leadership means a new level of ambition.
We start with one-on-ones and workshops that pool everything anyone believes could move the needle, quantify each opportunity, and put those numbers back to the collective team for an analytical debate, instead of a partisan debate.
At a PE-backed children’s television business, a newly formed leadership team used this process to sign up to priorities it had shaped and tested, with a plan targeting 100% EBITDA growth.
The full story →A team that inherits a plan owes itself a re-diligence of every assumption in it. Received wisdom goes stale; analysis gets stranded in silos; the numbers that once justified a priority may no longer hold.
At a PE-backed clothing retailer, we ran a value creation planning framework with a well-established team, quantifying and challenging views it had held intuitively for years and crystallising a new plan targeting 100% EBITDA growth. The team asked for the work to be refreshed four years on.
The full story →Every leadership team has more ideas than it can execute at once. Capex is split from opex because each matters differently for EBITDA and covenants. We consider organisation capability and management capacity to assess risk. With these metrics in place, everything that’s viable can be aligned to the right horizon: resource now, research now to resource later, or prepare for the next owner.
At an apparel retailer, plenary workshops alternated with one-to-ones so every functional leader could argue for their own priorities. Arguing came with a price: they had to own the numbers attached. And nothing was being rejected, only placed in a horizon. When the group reconvened, consensus came quickly. From a list of a dozen initiatives, a new online fulfilment warehouse went in now, new store openings were phased across three years, and US expansion would be evidenced for the next owner.
Before priorities can be set, everyone needs the same facts. A rapid diagnostic reveals the underlying terrain quickly: for a new team it builds shared knowledge; for a team that has been through upheaval it surfaces received wisdom that has gone stale. How the diagnostic works →
A children’s entertainment group mapped its shows against every country and channel it sold into, an exercise well beyond the normal scope of diligence. The flagship property, which was also its biggest toy brand, was absent from a leading French platform. When the head of TV sales pressed, the objection turned out to be the narration style, which had to be redone for the French dub anyway. A major market opened.
The method in full, in the investment lifecycle article: The Value Creation Plan.
You need a plan the investors will back and the team will own.
I don’t need any detail. I will set up a short call. No charge, no deck, and no follow-up unless you ask for it.