Getting started
Most businesses have an instinctive desire to improve their profitability. Here are just a few of the ways we help with that:
- Profitability Review – analysing where your profit really comes from and how to improve it
- Growth Action Plan – creating a short, punchy list of actions to help you achieve your strategy
- Managing your people – questioning your management team to ensure they have all the information they need to manage their teams effectively
- Effective forecasting – creating realistic and achievable plans that aren’t just based on what happened last year
- Efficiency reviews – assessing whether the financial processes and systems, including reporting, are fit for purpose
- KPIs – reviewing the Key Performance Indicators in your business and ensuring they are both appropriate and effective
- Breakeven analysis – understanding your breakeven point and using it to make informed decisions
Please contact us for further information.
Other ways we help
Professional Service Firms
- Financial Stability Health Checks for lawyers – these focus on the SRA’s requirement for firms to maintain systems and controls for monitoring financial stability
- Practical tips on financial management – two short courses, which can be tailored as one-to one sessions, designed for fee-earners and heads of department in professional firms to supplement their existing knowledge
- Addressing the ‘3Ps’ for law firms (Profitability; Partnership Change; Peace of Mind): contact us for our 20 key questions for Managing Partners to consider
- Cash Flow Health Check – reviewing the key steps in the work delivery, billing and cash collection processes, and ways to unlock more cash
- Benchmarking your financial performance – comparing your firm’s key financial data: income, productivity, costs and lock-up, against sector avearges
- Client listening programmes – conducting client feedback interviews (either by phone or in person) to measure satisfaction and drive improvements
- Tender debriefs – whether successful or not, there is often much that a firm can learn from using an independent person, experienced in presentations and debriefs, to conduct feedback on its performance in a tender process
- Mergers and Acquisitions – ask for our 26 point checklist for planning a successful merger
- Cross-selling – designing actions to create a successful framework for increasing fees from your existing clients, and helping you implement them. See our 11 point checklist
Owner-managed businesses
- Practical tips on financial management – short courses designed for non-financial managers on what to look for, how to interpret financial data, use information and understand the impact of discounting
- Customer listening programmes – conducting key customer feedback interviews (either by phone or in person) to measure satisfaction and drive improvements
- Tender debriefs – whether successful or not, there is often much that a business can learn from using an independent person, experienced in presentations and debriefs, to conduct feedback on its performance in a tender process
How we work
Coaching and mentoring
Either one-to-one or in small teams, we work with business leaders and managers, providing challenge, support, guidance and advice on both day-to-day issues and the ‘bigger picture’
Our role often involves being a ‘trusted adviser’ to the Managing Partner or MD and acting as a sounding board, particularly on confidential issues
We also use our experience of working across many industries to mentor those in financial management roles
Workshops
When working with teams on specific projects, whether to develop strategies, brainstorm ideas or solve problems, we design and facilitate bespoke workshops. These provide an opportunity to gain a shared understanding of the issues. Out of the process, we generate an agreed action plan
Facilitator / Chairman
Some clients use Tim Bentall as an independent, non-executive chairman, or facilitator, for conferences, away-days and meetings involving strategic planning. Tim also becomes involved in implementation of clients’ strategic objectives. Typically, progress is monitored at quarterly review meetings, providing enough time to progress a project whilst still maintaining the momentum and energy for change
Training
Sound financial management lies at the heart of a successful business. Our training, which is tailored to the needs of the business at all levels, focuses on the practical steps that will help management teams improve the profitability of their departments and raise the commercial awareness of members of their teams. Typically, courses run for half a day
Health Checks
Health checks are a quick and cost-effective way of identifying areas where financial performance can be improved; for example productivity, margins and cash flow. They allow a more targeted approach to areas requiring improvement
Analysis and advice; options and actions
Improving financial performance requires a sound understanding of the status quo. To do that, we spend time reviewing the systems and processes, and capturing the views of those involved, before feeding back to the management team. We’ll then discuss the options, identify some actions and monitor progress