Structured support

Collinson Grant offers a framework of support to turn round failing businesses. It has simple objectives:

• to improve operating performance quickly, to restore profitability and prevent further losses
• to restore energy and commitment in the management team, or replace them with executives who can achieve results
• to restructure the business so that a plan can be conceived to allow the owners to sell their equity at a reasonable return (or without further losses).

Our approach aims to take early action to reverse negative trends, improve monthly results and define a path to recovery. In the short term, reducing costs will be a priority, but this may already have been attempted. Better to restructure the business to the right size and shape to perform satisfactorily in a harsh economic climate, and to equip it with a management team that can cope with uncertainty. This will often mean reducing the staff.

We provide managerial and consulting support in three different ways:

• Strategic direction and control - we can supply strong, non-executive directors, who draw on their operational experience to provide leadership on key decisions and a balanced view.
• Interim appointments - operational managers with experience of success in senior jobs take up executive positions and assume accountability for parts of the business.
• Projects for improvement - our consultants lead specific projects to reduce costs, introduce organisational change, rationalise the supply chain, revise terms and conditions of employment and set up more effective business processes.

We work closely with the present managers, while recognising that some may need to leave quite quickly. Our purpose - to stem losses rapidly, appraise the short- and medium-term prospects, and generate some forward momentum - requires an assessment of customers and markets, and a dispassionate evaluation of the business and its capabilities.