BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

Growing a business is not simply a function of increasing sales. Effective strategy and operational excellence are key to not just managing growth, but facilitating it as well.

At Emergent Partners, we have structured our Business Excellence Practice to help you formulate the right strategy and achieve the operational excellence necessary to help your organization grow.

Business Strategy

Business strategy focuses on all aspects of high-level planning and preparing for the future of the business.  Emergent Partners can help you formulate effective strategies in the following areas:

 

Business Plans

Having a formal, well thought out business plan benefits a company regardless of where the business is in its life cycle. We can help with:

  • Formulating initial business plans for start-up companies which are critical for securing initial funding and guiding the business through its initial stages
  • Creating business plans for mature companies as part of the establishment of a strategic planning function
  • Updating business plans for mature companies to plot out future growth or transactions

 

Management Strategy

How a management team interacts internally and with employees drives the success of an organization. Emergent Partners can help you in:

  • Setting up an efficient management structure during all phases of the company life cycle
  • Revising management structure based on actual or planned changes in company structure
  • Determining and implementing priorities and culture for management
  • Providing high-level advice on effective methods for managing the business and its people
  • Facilitating communication and collaboration between senior management or business partners

 

Growth Strategies

Properly managing growth ensures sustainability for both continued growth and the organization as a whole. Emergent Partners can show you how to effectively manage growth by:

  • Providing strategy on how to manage growth and minimize adverse affects of growth on the company
  • Integrating growth strategy into overall strategic planning and setting acceptable benchmarks for growth

 

What your Company Needs to do In Order to Meet Established Goals

What constitute acceptable goals for your company and how do you meet those goals? How you define and meet goals ultimately determines the course that your company follows. We can help by:

  • Determining acceptable levels of performance, what constitutes underperformance and how to generate accurate metrics for tracking performance
  • Providing pinpoint, high-level strategy on how to improve performance in specific areas of the business

 

Contingency Planning

Effective planning for disasters and other unexpected events can be critical for survival. Solutions from Emergent Partners can help you in the following areas:

  • Analysis of risk scenarios and formulation of strategic plans to address those risk scenarios
  • Disaster planning and disaster recovery
  • Strategic planning for market fluctuations and minimizing effects on the business

 

Business Process

Maximizing synergies between business processes and business activities and systems is an important aspect of achieving operational excellence. Emergent Partners can help your company achieve operational excellence by focusing on the following:

 

Operational Processes

These are the processes that manage how your organization generates revenue and create the foundation of the products or services you provide. Ensuring these processes are as efficient as possible maximizes revenue while reducing core costs. We help by focusing on the following areas:

 

Supply Chain

  • Inventory:  Improving inventory management and tracking and the formation and/or implementation of improved processes or systems
  • Procurement:  Advising on procurement strategy and setting up processes and systems for qualifying vendors, managing vendor contracts, and tracking vendor performance
  • Logistics:  Providing advice, strategy, and improved processes for reducing transaction costs and improving efficiency
  • Supply Chain Management:  Advising on management of your overall supply chain

 

Core Business Processes/Revenue Generating Processes

Improving processes that Convert Sales into Orders. When a revenue generating opportunity has been identified, these processes are used to qualify, track, and record the opportunity prior to the beginning of the Order to Cash Process.

 

Business Management

Improving processes through which you manage your business eliminates unnecessary expenses that are not directly associated with generating revenue and allow for better access to cash and management of available cash. Our focus emphasizes helping you improve the following:

 

Order to Cash Process

  • Order Management
  • Invoicing
  • Collections

 

Procure to Pay Process

  • Purchase Orders
  • Payables

 

Accounting

  • Period Close Processes
  • Recurring Entries

 

Reporting & Planning

  • Internal Reporting
  • External Reporting
  • Planning (Budget & Forecast)

 

Payroll & Human Resources

  • Management and Compliance

Finance, Reporting, Planning & Analysis

Finance, Reporting, Planning, and Analysis functions can serve as an integral part of business management and business strategy as well as provide an accurate representation of the status of the organization to third parties. Below are the areas where Emergent Partners can help your organization achieve reporting and planning excellence:

 

Systems & Tools for Reporting, Planning, and Analysis

  • Management, Configuration, Conversion, and Implementation
  • Building of custom models to facilitate Reporting, Planning, and Analysis
  • Supported by our System Implementation Support Practice

 

Strategy

  • Determining how your finance functions integrate into overall business strategy

 

Process

  • Defining and/or improving processes surrounding Reporting, Budget, Forecast, and Analysis

 

Methodology

  • Establishing methodologies such as whether or not to use a budget process or a dynamic rolling forecast or how to use dynamic scenario analysis versus simple variance analysis

 

Structuring Reporting & Analysis to Management Needs

  • Determining what data or metrics are critical for management to lead the organization and structuring reporting capabilities around those priorities

 

Establishing Reporting as a Critical Function of Business Management

  • Increasing the accuracy, timeliness, and usefulness of reports and integrating reporting into management processes for the organization

Working Captial/Cash Management

The availability of Working Capital and Cash are essential to any business and must be tracked and managed effectively to ensure the competitiveness and long-term stability of the organization. Emergent Partners can help you maximize yours in the following ways:

 

Securing Outside Financing/Making the Business More Attractive to Lenders & Investors

  • Helping the organization secure outside investment or debt financing
  • Making key improvements within the organization to increase the likelihood of investors and lenders providing favorable terms

 

Managing Outside Financing

  • Providing strategy on how to manage investors and lenders

 

Process & Methodology

  • Determining how much leverage the organization needs to carry and when and how to deal with cash or working capital shortages

 

Maximizing Efficiency with the Order to Cash & Procure to Pay Processes

  • Streamlining of Order to Cash and Procure to Pay processes increasing accuracy and shortening the amount of time necessary for collections and meeting payment obligations

 

Defining & Reporting

  • Defining what constitutes working capital for your organization
  • Creating or improving reporting functions on working capital and cash

IT & Systems

In order for business systems to be effective, they must integrate seamlessly with business requirements and processes and be cost effective in their implementation and operation. Emergent Partners has the tools to help make your business systems effective. Here is where we can help:

 

Review

  • Overall review of systems and capabilities matched to business needs and projected growth

 

Implementation & Integration

  • Strategy, Project Management, and Business Process assistance
  • Supported by our System Implementation Support Practice

 

Selection

  • Matching business needs with the capabilities of existing software packages taking into account the cost of software, infrastructure, and implementation as well as the need and ability to customize
  • Supported by our System Implementation Support Practice

 

Customization

  • Creating custom solutions and workarounds within existing systems providing low-cost alternatives to implementing new systems

 

Conversion

  • Strategy, Project Management, and Business Process assistance with converting from one system to another
  • Supported by our System Implementation Support Practice

Accounting

Accounting processes serve as the foundation for financial reporting, planning, and analysis functions which drive the ability of an organization to accurately report on its status and make well-informed management decisions. Below are areas where we can help your organization achieve accounting process excellence:

 

Ensuring Accounting Meets all Applicable Standards

  • Evaluating accounting treatments against domestic and international standards and guidance from regulatory bodies

 

Validating or Creating Accounting Treatments for Events & Transactions

  • Determining how events and transactions triggered through the course of doing business need to be accounted for and creating treatments that meet applicable standards.

 

Period Close Process

  • Ensuring that efficient and accurate closes are conducted and accounting resources are not strained in the process

 

Accrual Versus Cash Accounting for Small Businesses & Conversion Between Methods

  • Determining what type of accounting setup will be beneficial for the organization and under which circumstances both will need to be used
  • Establishing the process for making conversions between methods.

 

Department Setup & Resource Management

  • Determining what the makeup of the Accounting Department needs to be based on the requirements of the business and what number and level of resources will be needed to make up the Accounting Staff

 

Accounting for Startup Companies

  • Setting process & treatments for initial transactions
  • Creating a scalable Chart of Accounts
  • Determining initial & future accounting resources based on growth

 

Process & Controls

  • Streamlining accounting processes and implementing key controls to increase accuracy and improve governance

Internal Audit Process

Internal controls and an effective Internal Audit Function improve the ability of an organization to mitigate risk and prevent fraud. We can help your organization in the following ways:

 

Setup & Management of Internal Controls

  • Implementing internal controls in all areas of the organization
  • Establishing the system by which controls will be managed

 

Processes for Control Testing at Regular Intervals

  • Establishing when and how internal controls will be tested

 

Segregation of Duties

  • Separating responsibilities from a process and system standpoint to mitigate the risk of errors or fraud

 

Identification of Key Risk Areas & Mitigation Tactics

  • Determining where the greatest risks to the organization are and what the organization can do to prevent risks that can be controlled and minimize the effects of those that cannot

 

Internal Audit Function Setup

  • Establishing structure and scope
  • Prioritizing policies and procedures for review
  • Determining the number and level of resources that will be necessary to meet requirements
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