BUSINESS PLANNING

At Bearing Harbor, we do not simply come in, do a task, and just walk away. We’re determined to work with you to achieve your overall goals and help your business succeed. As business consultants, we firmly believe that your success is our success. That’s why we bring several resources that a small- to medium-sized business will need, along with a broad scope of services. Please be aware though — our consulting with you is a partnership that requires your active participation and implementation for our plans to succeed.

Strategy

We help you to derive a focused strategy to successfully achieve your organizations objectives and overarching goals. We guide you in the realization of how you should approach doing business and why making that change will work better. By following the strategies, we develop together, you’ll find and interact with more clients. It also ensures your customers get the best product, service, and client experience. Most importantly, you’ll make your clients feel valued.

Business Strategy Development

We’ll review with you where you are in your business and assess your market, your competition, including other companies, products, and services, and the potential client base. Once we, together, have a strong understanding of your business, its market context and operational effectiveness, we’ll define where you want to go with it. We’ll determine what opportunities you see for growth, whether that means growing within your current business scope, getting deeper penetration within the market or overall business expansion.

Business Planning

Once we know who you are, what you do, and where you want to go, we’ll advise you about the best planning strategy for your business and its future. We accomplish this by doing the following:

  1. Document the business operating context that is expected and identify gaps that must be addressed to effectively achieve your goals whether it be specific growth and profitability targets, business expansion or management/ownership transition; an exit strategy to maximize the company’s valuation.
  2. Together, we will identify Perceived Gaps in your company’s infrastructure within the business operating context. We will identify what we need to do in terms of People, Equipment and Systems, Processes or Procedures and Data and Information. Ultimately, generating an Integrated Analysis of the Business Requirements for successfully achieving the stakeholders’ objectives and overarching Goals
  3. Create Action Plans with specific steps and timeframes. To the extent possible, we will define measurable milestones and, to drive achievement of these critical steps, identify the key personnel who will drive the effective completion of each step. We will determine what investment is required and what return would be expected from that investment. It must be recognized that to achieve superior results to the current operating results, the status quo must change.
  4. Create a 3 to 5 Year Financial Plan including both P&L Goals and Financing Requirements. This will align with the action steps and milestones quantifying achievement in a meaningful way.

Ultimately, we will develop a document for management to use to communicate to Stakeholders (owners, family members and employees) and financing companies which will help you get the funding you need to achieve your ultimate goal.  This document and financial projections become the basis of managing forward. It becomes a living document when coupled with proper performance management. It should be understood that what you do not measure you do not achieve.