Key Benefits

• Reduce investment risk
• Identify and prioritize infrastructure enhancements 
• Upgrade negotiating position with investment partners

Components

Most investors evaluate three critical components prior to providing capital:

• The Marketing Plan
• The Financial Position (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow)
• Warrants and Obligations

These areas give you a good perspective on the goals and finances, but do they tell you whether or not the company is capable of success?  Our position is that there are three additional components that must be evaluated prior to investment:

• People
• Processes
• Infrastructure

 People Assessment

So the company has a great marketing plan.  Are the managers "seasoned", or are they rank amateurs?  Do they understand their jobs?  How do they communicate with each other?  How do they manage change in the marketplace?  Are they the sort of people you would choose to hire?  How are they compensated?   In other words, is the workforce stable, competent, and able to execute the marketing plan?

 

We can develop an assessment of key staff or departments, defining gaps in skills, training, and competencies required to support the company's market vision.

 

    Process Assessment

Take an order.  Allocate resources to fulfill that order (parts, people, etc.).  Ship the order.  Bill the order.  Manage the Customer experience "from cradle to grave".  These are typical processes that must be established prior to satisfying a need in the marketplace.  But do they exist?  Or, is the company locked into old, obsolete processes that no longer meet the needs of the Customer?

We can evaluate current processes, their relationships with the technical infrastructure, and identify opportunities for improvement.  Also, for companies evaluating or implementing automation (CRM, ERP, etc.), we can help ensure that they aren't "automating a bad process".

 

    Infrastructure Assessment

Can the company's servers handle the growth implied by the marketing plan?  Does the fulfillment system meet requirements for lot tracking?  Are invoices linked to Sales Rep compensation?  Do software development networks provide for off-site storage of critical source code?  Is there sufficient redundancy to manage call-center overflow?   Or, on the other hand, has the company bought a Cadillac when a pickup truck would do?

 

We can evaluate the technical operations, hardware, software licensing and development environment.  We can assess a company's ability to support the marketing vision through applications, hardware, and bandwidth.

With our People, Process, and Infrastructure assessment, you'll know if the marketing plan is an executable document, or merely represents the sort of fuzzy vision you get after too much sun ... In other words, we can keep you from getting "burned". 

If you're the one providing the capital, you can negotiate terms from a position of strength, and you can more effectively manage the risk of your investment.  

If you're the one seeking investment monies, you can proactively address your weaknesses before they are uncovered.  You may determine that you're not ready for capital injection, or you may merely be better informed as to how to use it.  Either way, you win.