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Grow your business
Sometimes, an objective viewpoint can make all the difference. When you’re deeply involved in the day-to-day it can be difficult to step back and look at the big picture. As businesses grow and mature, they often outgrow the structures and strategies which initially worked so well. But how do you know when to make a change?
Our advisers have years of experience helping business owners and managers grow and protect their company. We understand typical business paths (and pitfalls) and can advise on the right time to make a change.
Our professional advice covers all areas of business growth and strategy, from profit improvement, through employee remuneration and development to options like acquisitions and franchising.
We also ensure your business growth plan is aligned with your personal wealth plan, protecting your assets and the future of those you care about.
Profit improvement
Two decades ago, we started building benchmarking data for specific businesses and industries. Over the years we have continued to build this data pool, overlaying it with third-party benchmarking data and our own analysis and experience.
We now have a powerful Profit Improvement Toolkit, which we use to show businesses where their profit restrictors are, as well as the key factors which drive growth and profit. We also map your performance against your competitors and give you specific measurements to use so you can judge the success of strategic changes you make.
This is a snapshot of our Profit Improvement Process:
Profit improvement
Competitive analysis
Investigation
Planning
Action
Competitive analysis
Your competitors could look like they’re making a killing when really, they’re just scraping by. Our data and experience can give you the true picture. We will quantify, in dollars, exactly how much your business could benefit by the changes we propose.
Investigation
We sit down with you and other key people within your business to gain a true understanding of your business and how it’s going. We then measure your financial performance against a range of indicators, targeting specific areas depending on your industry.
Planning
We explain the results of our analysis and help you build a strategy to capitalise on the opportunities and address any areas of concern. We make sure the strategy is achievable and realistic and based on real-life case-studies from your industry.
Action
Acting on the plan is perhaps the most important part of profit improvement. We’ll wrap all our findings and strategy into a report which will recommend specific actions and timeframes. Our objectives is that your business reports a significant, immediate and ongoing uplift in profit.
People plan
You can’t build a great company without a great team. But recruiting, retaining and motivating employees is a job in itself. Everyone is different, has different dreams and ambitions and wants their employer to care about them.
People plan
Key employee development
Planning
Remuneration
Having the hard conversations
Key employee development
The best way to motivate employees is to progressively give them more responsibility and a clear path to leadership. This also reduces your workload and makes the business less dependent on you - bringing you closer to a successful business exit.
Planning
The first thing we do is find out what your business goals are. Then we interview your key employees to uncover their goals. We put them both together, identify the gaps and develop a plan to fill them.
Remuneration
The right remuneration package ensures your key staff are signed on for the long haul and driven to succeed. We’ll consider equity and options, bonus structures, profit-sharing and other incentives and will deliver the most tax-efficient result for both you and your employees.
Having the hard conversations
Sometimes, in the process of putting together your people plan we’ll realise that your business’ goals and the ambitions and abilities of some people are not aligned. We’ll help address your people issues sympathetically – but directly, legally and efficiently.
Acquisition
Many business owners love the idea of pulling down their competitor’s logo and replacing it with their own. It’s an exciting but risky strategy. You need to fully understand what you are likely to gain and what the risks are. Before you go big and bold, you should really pause, breathe and get a second opinion.
We have decades of experience advising business leaders on the big deals which can make or break a business.
Acquisition
Efficiencies
Relationships
Finance and pricing
Synergy
Efficiencies
We’ll examine whether combining the two businesses could increase efficiency and reduce overall costs. This could be de-duplicating back office systems and processes, reducing overheads, removing high-cost assets, or combining related processes.
Relationships
Customer and supplier relationships are the lifeblood of a business. We’ll examine your network of relationships and determine any opportunities for growth.
Finance and pricing
We’ll dig into your finances in detail and do the same for your take-over target. Then we’ll tackle the all-important question – what should the price be? We’ll then advise on funding models and the expected impact on your bottom line, in the short and long term.
Synergy
The products and services you offer could be closely aligned with your competitor and combining the two could make perfect sense. Or it could cause a horrible mishmash of conflicting priorities. We’ll help you make the right decisions.
Franchising
While most business types can be franchised and it can be an excellent vehicle for growth, it’s also a potential minefield of legal, accounting and compliance misery. We have a sophisticated process, developed over years, which helps you discover whether your business is suitable for franchising and how difficult and expensive it is likely to be. The process includes:
Franchising
Research
Understanding
Modelling
Implementation
Research
To build our model and provide an assessment for you, we rigorously investigate the market, revenue, margins, costs, salaries, royalties, marketing strategy and administration.
Understanding
We talk with you to fully understand your business and the model you’re looking to franchise. We then look at it from the franchisee’s point of view to see if you are likely to attract franchisees and give them what they need for shared success.
Modelling
From our earlier work we then build a model. This starts with a base position and then models various scenarios to show how this will affect your revenue, profit, cost and business sustainability.
Implementation
If you decide to go ahead, we start working with you to make the franchise work. We can coordinate (and recommend) an experienced team of bankers, lawyers, insurers and others who can ensure your franchise model has the right foundations for growth.
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BBus (Acc), CA, CTA, RG146, FBA, Specialist Accredited Advisor
Lead Partner
Michael Sutherland
Michael Sutherland
BBus (Acc), CA, CTA, RG146, FBA, Specialist Accredited Advisor Lead Partner
Phone
03 9611 6733
Email
Contact me
Bio
Michael joined Fordham in 2001 and is now the lead partner of a team of 30 with clients in Property & Construction, Retail/Ragtrade, Transport, Manufacturing and Franchising. He started his career in 1991 with one of the Big Four accounting firms and joined Fordham 10 years later to focus specifically on medium-sized, privately-owned businesses.
As a Chartered Tax Advisor with a wealth of experience in corporate advisory, as well as private businesses, Michael brings this unique perspective to help his clients’ businesses grow and overcome adversity. He helps clients across the broad range of business and personal issues they face including arranging external financing, modelling/forecasting, reporting, shareholder issues, structuring and valuations.
In this role Michael enjoys undertaking strategic planning for his clients and often participates as Board Chair. He runs executive leadership team meetings focused on driving accountability and meaningful improvements to operational performance. He is a regular presenter and author of industry articles for the building and property development sector, as well as Ragtrade industry segments. When not at work, he is chauffeuring four daughters to school, rep basketball and football.
Industry specialisation: Property & Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Transport, Franchising
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Frank Genobile
Frank Genobile
BBus, CA, DFS (FP) Lead Partner
Phone
03 9611 6601
Email
Contact me
Bio
Frank’s passion is the motor industry and while at Fordham he has overseen significant growth in our motor dealer client base. He has a deep understanding of the workings of a dealership - probably one of the toughest environments in which to make a profit.
During his time at Fordham, Frank has developed significant expertise in valuations, mergers and acquisitions, purchase and sale of businesses and in leading negotiations. He is also well practiced in strategic planning in areas including succession, management and business structuring. He runs regular monthly meetings with several of his major clients and facilitates profit improvement meetings for one of Australia’s leading automotive distributors.
Frank’s colleagues and clients rely on his intimate understanding of business and his proven ability to identify and solve problems. He has used this to develop a range of unique products, in collaboration with his team, to help clients run their businesses more successfully. Many of these have now become standard operating tools for Fordham, including the Dealership Diagnostic and the Profit Improvement Program.
Industry specialisation: Motor Dealer Services
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