Small Business Consulting
Compelling proposition to the Business Owners
The Indian economy is showing promise, giving hope for significant business advancement. The economic growth cycle has established long-term business growth.
Fintelligence Consultants firmly believe that an organization’s success is not a matter of luck but the result of a systematic approach to development. According to a McKinsey study, companies implementing formal growth strategies are ten times more likely to succeed. Fintelligence Consultants can help you tap into your business potential and make your company successful. We provide expert services to address unique business issues and ensure timely solutions to achieve the business’s full potential.
Business Owner Support Program
Business and Executive Coaching and Competence Focus
Commercial Excellence Strategy
Commercial Excellence Strategy training and competence building focused on Sales Strategy, Sales Targets, sales effectiveness, Customer Strategy, Pricing, and Service Portfolio.
Financial Management Training
Financial management training and competence building focus on profitability, cash flow, working capital, budgeting, and forecasting.
Analytics
Objective
What Challenge(s) do Our Clients Face?
Business owners encounter some situations that we need to address.
Survival can be challenging, but growth is more achievable.
Operating without earning a profit or dealing with strained finances beyond seasonal fluctuations can permanently harm a business. India now has the IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) to help companies to understand this better. Sustainable profit is one of the primary indicators of business success, and having free cash flow is a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Growth results in profit, while survival leads to incurring costs.
Focus on Growth.
Shift Business Owners focus on day-to-day operational tasks and concentrate on recognizing and seizing growth opportunities. This change in focus will enable them to take advantage of potential prospects and lay the groundwork for strategic development and success.
Formal Growth Strategy.
Developing a formal growth strategy is essential in driving business expansion and increasing profitability rather than relying on chance. Without a well-defined plan, achieving success becomes considerably more complicated. Planning, execution, and results are interconnected and reinforce each other for business growth.
Funding.
Business growth depends on securing adequate funding and maintaining sustained effort. Innovative companies and promoters can secure capital. Lenders tend to be more selective in their evaluations than investors.
Self-funding.
Relying on retained earnings and attracting investors is the most reliable approach to ensure ongoing funding. Business growth plays a pivotal role in ensuring profitability. Improved profitability and working capital enhancements lead to positive free cash flow. Cash flow and liquidity are fundamental benchmarks that investors and lenders focus on. Consequently, small business owners should recognize that business growth is indispensable in securing funding support.
Governance.
Governance helps companies get loans at attractive rates, and investors focus on good governance companies. Moreover, your organization becomes self-reliant as processes, systems, and approvals are in place, defining accountability and responsibility.
Operational Excellence is not enough.
Please read it loudly for yourself: Operational excellence is not a strategy. It’s necessary to compete, but more is needed to compete in the market. The more we focus on benchmarking, the more we risk blending in with the competition. That’s a weakness in achieving operational excellence.
Incremental Innovation, R&D-led and Non-R&D-Led.
Incremental product and service innovation strengthens market positions. Focusing on customer needs is a prerequisite. Innovation can be non-R&D-led, targeted at revenue model, or customer experience. Capability development and business model innovation are such examples.
Competent Organization.
A proficient organization encompasses various capabilities, including processes, systems, tools, and personnel. A proficient organizational structure is imperative for effectively managing daily operations. This amalgamation facilitates intelligent and consistent work among employees, effectively aiding in the seamless management of daily operations. The reproducibility of these processes ensures both efficiency and scalability.
Delegation.
Business owners should prioritize delegation effectively. Top management and business owners should only deal with 5% of organizational issues to measure the organization’s strength in their absence. Short-term challenges can lead a business to lose sight of its medium- and long-term goals, putting its growth potential at risk.
Finance for non-finance.
Financial literacy is underestimated. Humans are pretty receptive to managing their finances. As we say, finance needs business acumen; non-finance employees must also have finance acumen. Even if one of your salespeople learns to refrain from giving extra discounts or sticks to the company policy of payment terms, the company will earn 5- to -10% more profit.
How Do We Help Business Owners?
Business Owners Need Advisory/ Consulting. There are some signs to call the Advisory.
- Stagnant Growth or Declining Performance - Consultants can identify the causes and provide solutions.
- Lack of Expertise - A specialist can enhance your company's performance.
- Preparation for Expansion, Merger, Diversification, and Exit—Help identify risks and opportunities and ensure expansion and integration
- Change Management: Provide valuable insights into potential changes and the transition journey and ensure the success of the process.
- Introduction of New Technologies – Implementing new technologies and optimizing for your business
Expert Guidance for Medium and Small Businesses
The state of the economy significantly affects growth. Companies have limited control over external factors, such as macroeconomic conditions and industry trends.
Fintelligence Consultants help minimize these external impacts, allowing a dedicated focus on management practices. These factors have varying influences on growth and are consistent across sectors. Companies have control over these critical factors, which can drive growth.
Can we quantify the challenges faced by Business Owners?
Estimating the exact percentage of companies facing each problem can be challenging, as it varies by Indian Manufacturing Industry, region, and each company’s specific circumstances. However, based on standard industry insights and reports, here are rough estimates for the percentage of Indian Manufacturing Industry companies (with turnover between 10 crores and 50 crore) likely facing these issues.
Source: https://www.acesnws.com/top-12-challenges-indian-manufacturing-industry-ceos-face/
Here’s an estimated breakdown of how these problems might be represented in terms of their prevalence among Indian Manufacturing Industry companies:
- Financial Management: 10.00%
- Market Competition: 11.67%
- Customer Demand and Satisfaction: 8.33%
- Scalability and Growth: 8.33%
- Cost Management: 11.67%
- Operational Efficiency and Productivity: 11.67%
- Supply Chain Management: 10.00%
- Quality Control: 8.33%
- Human Resources and Skilled Labor: 8.33%
- Technology Adoption: 6.67%
- Regulatory Compliance: 6.67%
- Environmental and Social Responsibility: 6.67%
Financial Management
- Problem: Managing cash flow, securing financing, and controlling costs.
- Reason: Cash flow management and securing financing are ongoing challenges for mid-sized companies.
- Impact: Financial instability can hinder growth and lead to insolvency.
- Solution: Utilize financial planning tools and seek expert financial advice.
Market Competition
- Problem: Intense competition between domestic and international players.
- Reason: Intense competition is constantly challenging, particularly in markets with low entry barriers.
- Impact: Pressures pricing, margins, and market share.
- Solution: Differentiating through quality, innovation, and customer service.
Customer Demand and Satisfaction
- Problem: Understanding and meeting changing customer preferences and demands.
- Reason: Meeting evolving customer expectations requires continuous effort and adaptation.
- Impact: Inability to meet customer expectations can lead to a loss of business.
- Solution: Conduct market research and maintain close communication with customers.
Scalability and Growth
- Problem: Challenges in scaling operations and expanding market reach.
- Reason: Scaling operations while maintaining quality and efficiency is a significant hurdle.
- Impact: Stagnant growth and missed opportunities.
- Solution: Developing a strategic growth plan and exploring new markets.
Cost Management
- Problem: Rising raw materials, energy, and labor costs.
- Reason: Rising costs of inputs and operational expenses impact most companies.
- Impact: Squeezed profit margins and reduced competitiveness.
- Solution: Implementing cost control measures and exploring cost-saving technologies.
Operational Efficiency and Productivity
- Problem: Optimizing production processes and waste.
- Reason: Many companies need help optimizing processes due to outdated systems or need more expertise.
- Impact: Leads to higher operational costs and lower profitability.
- Solution: Implement lean manufacturing techniques and continuous improvement strategies. Operational
Supply Chain Management
- Problem: Challenges in managing suppliers, logistics, and inventory effectively.
- Reason: Supply chain complexities are daily, especially with global sourcing and fluctuating demands.
- Impact: Results in delays, stockouts, or excess inventory, affecting cash flow and customer satisfaction.
- Solution: Adopting robust supply chain management practices and technologies.
Quality Control
- Problem: Maintaining consistent product quality and meeting regulatory standards.
- Reason: Consistent quality maintenance is challenging, particularly with varied suppliers and production scales.
- Impact: Poor quality can lead to customer complaints, returns, and damage to the company’s reputation.
- Solution: Implementing strict quality control measures and regular audits.
Human Resources and Skilled Labor
- Problem: Attracting and retaining skilled labor and managing workforce productivity.
- Reason: Attracting and retaining skilled labor is a common issue, especially in competitive job markets.
- Impact: Labor shortages or low productivity can impede operations and innovation.
- Solution: Invest in employee training and development and offer competitive compensation.
Technology Adoption
- Problem: Keeping up with technological advancements and integrating new technologies into existing processes.
- Reason: Due to cost and integration concerns, many companies must adopt new technologies.
- Impact: Falling behind competitors who leverage technology for efficiency and innovation.
- Solution: Invest in relevant technologies and digital transformation initiatives. A well-structured product development life cycle (PDLC) is crucial for efficient manufacturing and on-time delivery. By adopting efficient project management practices, manufacturers can reduce lead times, improve coordination, and enhance productivity. Clear communication and effective stakeholder collaboration are crucial for a smooth PDLC.
Regulatory Compliance
- Problem: Navigating complex regulatory environments and ensuring compliance with laws and standards.
- Reason: Keeping up with changing regulations can be burdensome, especially for smaller companies with limited resources.
- Impact: Non-compliance can lead to fines, legal issues, and operational disruptions.
- Solution: Staying informed about regulatory changes and implementing compliance management systems.
Environmental and Social Responsibility
- Problem: Meeting environmental regulations and corporate social responsibility expectations.
- Reason: While increasingly important, many mid-sized companies may still be in the early stages of addressing these issues.
- Impact: Non-compliance can result in penalties and negative public perception.
- Solution: To adopt sustainable practices and demonstrate a commitment to social responsibility.
How do Business Owners benefit from our services?
Reinvestment as a Growth Driver
Companies with ambitious growth targets and access to necessary capital have the potential to achieve remarkable success through a reinvestment or investor approach. They must possess strong marketing skills, exceptional sales force management, and a network presence. While investment-driven growth can yield rapid and remarkable results, it is crucial to have sufficient capital. Therefore, business owners must be open to exploring additional lines of credit to support their growth-oriented investments. This approach can enhance their likelihood of securing funding from private equity investors, who are generally more willing to undertake calculated risks.
Growth Drivers
Focus On Market Expansion
Commercial excellence is intricately connected to a company’s ability to attract new customers and marketing and communication capabilities. The fastest-growing companies nurture strong teams in both areas to enhance their potential for attracting new customers and increasing sales. However, rapid growers don’t simply pursue more business in their existing markets; instead, they actively seek to expand into new geographic markets, including foreign ones.
Growth Strategy and Planning
It has been observed that businesses that focus on growth are more likely to have a formalized long-term growth strategy and a clear plan for its execution compared to those that do not prioritize growth. Companies should make strides in this regard. The growth-strategy process includes setting multiyear and annual growth targets, effectively tracking progress towards these targets, and ensuring that these objectives are communicated across all levels of the organization.
Innovate, Invest, and Reinvest
Expanding your customer base by exploring new markets is undoubtedly beneficial. Still, generating demand by developing new products and services and investing in scaling the business to support such growth is equally important. The most rapidly expanding firms prioritize innovation and enhancements in their offerings (products and services) and their business systems, processes, equipment, and facilities required for delivering those offerings. Companies that experience rapid growth often demonstrate proficiency in these areas. They proactively invest in upcoming demands while preparing for unforeseen circumstances outside their control, such as an industry downturn, thus demonstrating resilience.
Professional CFO. Profitability, Cash Flow, Working Capital, Attracting Investors and Lenders.
Successful rapid growth hinges on a company’s capacity to attract and retain profitable customers and manage capital and revenue effectively. A robust finance function, spearheaded by a CFO, is crucial. The CFO must adeptly oversee cash flow, financial processes, and controls and cultivate strong relationships with capital sources—primarily banks—while maintaining a vigilant stance against the competition.
Competent Organization, Retain Talent
The fastest-growing companies excel in recruiting, retaining, and accessing an affordable workforce. Better talent drives faster growth, which attracts even more talented individuals. Access to an affordable workforce has less impact on growth than attracting and retaining skilled employees. Companies must attract and retain talented individuals and provide an environment fostering talent. This includes offering career paths, mentoring, and a culture that values and rewards ambition.
How does it work?
How Do We Make it Sustainable?
- Coaching and Competence Focus:-Our unwavering focus on coaching and developing competence underscores our commitment to helping our clients achieve sustainable business results. Meticulous execution and an unyielding dedication to improvement are paramount. We offer comprehensive supportive services to ensure our clients thrive, including personalized business coaching, tailored competency development, hands-on process support, adequate tool support, and customized mentoring. We aim to empower our clients to attain and maintain their desired outcomes, ensuring their long-term success and prosperity. We have developed a module that considers business needs and executive working styles.
- Commercial Strategy focused on Sales:- We begin with Fundamental training and take a practical approach to Sales targeting, Forecasting, and sales and Customer analytics. These tools help us understand market segmentation, customer lifetime value, pricing, discount trends, and installed base data to estimate customer potential for service businesses.
- We added the necessary competency-building workshop, which included Segmentation, Sales efficiency, Customer churn analysis, transactional pricing, and value pricing.
- Financial management is focused on profitability, cash flow, and working capital. We begin with Fundamental training in Budgeting and Forecasting, Profit opportunities, Cash flow and Working Capital Re-Investment strategy, or capital budgeting. We measure and monitor performance management through Financial Analysis and Reporting and meet Board and management expectations.
- We added the necessary competency-building workshop, which included preparing internal policy and controls and understanding risk mitigations. All this leads to the basic foundation of governance. Thinking through the broader perspective of internal accountability and meeting external challenges is a valued competency.
- We offer tools to use, improve, and use for regular analysis and insights. Many times, different companies have specific requirements. We can guide your team in developing those tools. Tools built in Excel are an excellent beginning. Once the understanding and processes reach proficiency levels, automation, and software systems can enhance their value.
- During the assignment, we encourage your team to take some initiatives and projects under our supervision. That will be an excellent chance to showcase and apply their recently enhanced competence to the company’s requirements. We review their performance and guide them toward continuous improvement.
- We wish to take key personnel mentoring. We hope what we deliver to clients will be sustainable in the medium to long term. Many times, mentoring key personnel helps keep that momentum. We identify them as super users. Super users are responsible for mastering specific skill sets and internally training others. This is the benchmark method where the company can internalize the competence building without frequently hiring an external advisor.
Four Types of Companies
- Innovation-driven: Develop innovative products and launch new offerings.
- Investment and reinvestment-focused: Expand sales and markets, acquire new customers, and target new regions.
- Professional, competent, and efficient management-oriented: Utilize management tools and systems to exploit efficiencies.
- Operational excellence on the shop floor: Implement lean and efficient practices specifically on the shop floor.
- Innovation Driven- R&D Led and Non-R&D-Led:-Innovative companies aim to be the first to market with technology or ideas, whether in high-tech industries or not. They are typically smaller and more agile than larger firms.
- Invest and Reinvest Focused that Achieves Scale:- Companies with an investor approach focus on expanding their market and sales network and developing new products and offerings to sell. This strategy allows them to scale their business. These companies are willing to invest in and have access to capital and are attractive to private equity and growth equity investors. Private equity investors prefer to invest in these types of companies over others.
- Professional, Competent, and Efficient Management:- They are frequently present in regulated industries, where growth is steered by a low-cost, low-price strategy, particularly in certain retailers and NBFCs. These companies adeptly blend lean operations with a growth strategy, leveraging the saved capital from operations to propel expansion. Additionally, they adeptly implement management tools across the organization.
- Operational Excellence is Restricted to the Shop Floor:-These companies emphasize efficient operations at the shop floor through lean processes, quality management systems, and skilled operators, resulting in cost-effective manufacturing. However, there is an opportunity for improvement in extending management tools across the organization to ensure efficient products and strengthen commercial functions to address customer needs better. Their focus primarily centers on existing customers, potentially missing out on the broader market and its growth opportunities. Our observation and study reveal that reinvesting in your core product, customers, and the market is the optimum growth strategy. Reinvestment is a growth driver. Businesses cannot scale without investment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Small businesses spend more time managing daily operations than business growth. Resources and competency are the main constraints. Our solutions ensure competence development and effective resource use. We assess business operations, develop strategies to improve productivity, performance, and profitability, and provide entrepreneurial development and business coaching.
To operate successfully, small businesses need competence development, functional capability, smooth operations, and a solid business plan backed by funding availability.
Managing daily operations in small businesses requires a significant amount of time. For example, when a major order is received, the entire company manages its delivery. This teamwork is a source of pride. However, focusing all resources on one order can dilute the business opportunity created by the momentum gained from such significant orders. Competence development, functional capability, smooth operations, and a solid business plan backed by funding availability are essential for enabling small businesses to operate successfully.
