smeconsulting is a strategic consultancy service for SME-sized Not for Profits wanting to strengthen one or more of the following things: their business & functional strategies, their finances, risk management, finance policies, finance strategy, data structures, procurement processes, business resilience and/or business flexibility.
Some SME Not for Profits, in ‘rapid growth’ mode may be interested in adding new policies and approaches to professionalise further. Other SME Not for Profits in a ‘consolidation or recovery’ mode may be interested in revamping their current approaches.
Typically in a SME Not for Profit, the senior leadership team are spread thinly and may lack team bandwidth to add more value at the strategic level. Meanwhile, the board and its committees review strategic initiatives. But don’t initiate or develop them.
By arrangement, smeconsulting can provide additional bandwidth (a stream of consecutive outputs, over an extended period) to strengthen certain board and committee papers, provide some benchmarking data & strategic financial analysis to effectively turbo-charge and unify the strategic aspects of some support functions e.g. Finance, IS/IT and Facilities. And unify the strategic aspects of some income-generating functions such as Fund Raising and/or Memberships.
Service List (pick and mix from 9 potential items):
1. Strategic Plan
Review the current Strategic Plan and ‘competitive landscape’.
Facilitate scenario planning for a range of likely scenarios, to test organisational resilience and agility in handling various threats & opportunities.
Help the organisation link its business strategy to various functional strategies e.g. Finance, IS/IT, Facilities, Fundraising and/or Memberships.
2. Risk Reviews
Review the organisational risk register compared to sector key risks and review risk mitigations in use against common sector risk mitigations.
Link big external risk impacts to customers, beneficiaries, members, suppliers, strategic partners and resources.
Do some selective deep-dives into key suppliers, especially the key project ones, on a best-efforts basis (solvency, ownership, support structures).
Help the organisation consider risk velocity and risk appetite (charitable activities v commercial trading, board v its various committees v SLT).
3. Reserves Policy
Sector analysis (UK Not for Profits of various income sizes).
Review and advise on designated reserves.
Draft policy creation or update.
4. Fee Rise and Fees Policy
Review the governance bylaws and fees history.
Help run the fee rise process, especially if it contains a member consultation phase.
Develop an explicit and enduring draft fees policy.
5. Finance Strategy
Review existing strategy and construct a broader version, inclusive of;
forward plans, budgets & forecasts, reserves, treasury services, commercial trading (if applicable), tax and internationalisation (if applicable), reporting, membership fees (if applicable), grants & donations (if applicable) and other income.
6. Data Structures and KPI Reporting
Review existing organisational data structures (data measures and attributes) for commercial customers, members/registrants or charity beneficiaries, suppliers, strategic partners and internal resources (MIS, staff, estates and funds). Identify risk-mitigation datasets to report on and monitor. Identify business-flexibility datasets to report on and monitor.
Review data structures relating to ‘what data fit these patterns’, with the desired ‘patterns’ expressed as; economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and ethical brand management. Note that Gen-AI is good at solving ‘what patterns fit this data?’ Humans are good at defining the patterns we want to see in the first place.
7. Procurement and Tenders
Review the existing procurement policy. Enhance it if necessary. Collate the key contracts with an expiry reminder automated service (to prevent automatic rollover).
Run one or more tender processes e.g. to replace or appoint external auditors, internal auditors, insurance brokers or investment fund managers. Includes creating the Invitation to Tender (ITT) document and selection pool of relevant suppliers.
Procure independent committee members with specialist expertise, if required.
8. Resilience Building
Professor Stefan Hunziker of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and a risk management expert, writes ‘resilience is the only way to deal with risks that are unknown unknowns. Financial resilience is vital. Nothing can compensate for it.’
Organisations typically underestimate the value of business resilience and pay a heavy price, as business conditions change (think 2008 financial markets subprime crash, 2020 covid pandemic, 2021 inflation volatility, supply chain disruption, market disruptors and gen AI).
Resilience building is a specialist consulting service – refer my other website www.sleicest-consulting.org.uk for more on this. It starts with deconstructing business resilience into its component parts; protection, durability, grit and healing rate. And then systematically reviewing opportunities for your organisation in each aspect.
9. Business Flexibility (BFL)
Organisations typically underestimate the value of business flexibility and if not being actively managed, then like human fitness, BFL can quietly dissipate over time.
sleicest-consulting has identified 39 different business mechanisms to generate and maintain business flexibility – arguably invaluable under conditions of future uncertainty. The relevant ones can be applied via a bespoke consulting service, as appropriate.
Business flexibility building is a specialist consulting service – refer my other website www.sleicest-consulting.org.uk for more on this. BFL starts with deconstructing business resilience into its component parts; adaptability, agility, resilience and managing options. And then systematically reviewing opportunities in each aspect.
ABOUT
Simon is an MBA-qualified, management consultant and chartered accountant. He has amassed 15 years of CFO/FD experience, 4 years of Non Executive Board experience and 35 years of finance experience in 2 countries. Sectorwise, this includes; Not for Profit sector (HEI regulator, fundraising charity and professional membership body organisations, ranging in size from £8M to £110M annual income). It also includes finance experience in retail banking, telco and several manufacturing companies.
Simon has worked at C-suite level in 3 UK professional membership bodies. In the health sector alone, Simon has 8 years client experience; including in a UK health regulator, HEI faculty of medicine, health advocacy charity, health empowerment charity (impartial systematic reviews) and health membership body.
Simon has a comprehensive range of management oversight experience spanning; strategy, structure, systems, processes and team cultural change in multiple functions (finance, HR, IT, facilities, procurement, project office, risk reporting and governance support).
Simon has overseen financial reporting set ups for major multi-year programmes, multiple member fee rises, finance policy changes, tenders, contract negotiations, risk reviews and some deep-dive investigations into key project partners as well.
The smeconsulting business frameworks are original and offer fresh approaches to familiar and novel problems alike.
Style and Core Values
The core values and features of smeconsulting;
– build an enduring relationship with the client.
– provide services that are customized, collaborative and solution-orientated.
– bring rounded and fresh thinking to each client assignment.
