It combines

• a traditional business health-check of profit, cashflow and key short term concerns

and

•  an analysis of decision making speed, culture and the quality of insights available to the management team.

It delivers

• short term recommendations to remove issues distracting the management team
• a roadmap for becoming an rapid-response opportunity-based business

Benefits

• A short, well-defined engagement
• Going beyond desk-based financial weakness to find operational root caues of cashflow weakness
• Increased confidence of key lenders and/or investors
• Increased staff morale and upskilling

A roadmap to

• becoming a faster, more responsive business
• bringing focus and clarity for the management team
• providing simplified business information which is quicker, more widely understood and leads to more profitable activities

Scope

• Profitability and cashflow trends
• Short term threats to viability
• Business focus on the market and external developments (such as customer and technology trends, and macroeconomic developments).
• A summary of industry-sector market research (often IBISWorld)
• Speed and simplicity of business reporting
• Use of business drivers and leading indicators in planning and decision making
• The culture of decision making and financial information sharing among key employees
• The use and effectiveness of business plans and objectives

The XRay scopes financial performance and the readiness of the business for profitable growth, which includes the decision-making process and the information used to make decisions.

Typical Fees and Time

The Business XRay usually takes two to four weeks. During that time, there will be around four interviews of key staff, and analysis of financials, business plans, SWOT and market research.

The Business XRay is often GrowthPath's initial engagement. It will be a fixed-fee engagement. Typically it's around $2000 to $3000.

No 'lock-in'

We have a 'no-lock-in' philosophy: the Business XRay will produce a highly professional report and implementation suggestion which you can use with some other implementation partner should you wish.

Each Business XRay has short term and medium term recommendations, prioritised. In most cases, it's possible for clients to implement the actions themselves, or to contract other resources to help.

Why is it so cheap?

Yes, we get asked that. It's a subsidised price because Tim Richardson, GrowthPath's founder, is committed to not charging clients simply to learn about their business. As an initial engagement, there is some pure learning, and we reduce the fee to allow for that.

We can still charge a reasonable amount because this is a much higher added-value initial engagement than the traditional management consultant health-check.