Financial Advisory
We help businesses surveil, appraise, and re-evaluate their financial and investment performance using the four main drivers of business growth: strategic, operational, financial, and governance. Applying these drivers ensures that businesses stay aligned with their growth objectives, thus maximising profits and sustained results within their established goals for growth. Our financial advisory services also help executives to diversify their revenue streams, develop investment plans, identify deficits in existing portfolios, and navigate shocks.
Fundraising Advisory
ECF Consultancy Fundraising Advisory services are spearheaded by a highly-trained multi-sectoral team from private equity, banking, venture capital, credit, and corporate development backgrounds. Start-ups require external financial resources to cushion their ideas. To access seed capital for business operations, strategies are needed to survey the industry landscape for capital donors and patrons willing to support a project in the hopes of reaping some financial gains. Raising money for almost any enterprise is challenging, but identifying sponsors and establishing roadmaps is even more daunting. We make this process smooth and easy for our clients by handling complex tasks and equipping them with the know-how to manage the rest. We help companies raise the necessary capital for their business operations and development and work with them to achieve their goals. We have a saying here at EFC Consultancy that we can only smile if the client is happy.
Start-up Feasibility Study
A business or project feasibility study is simply an assessment mechanism that helps executives establish the doability of a venture by determining the analytical ingredients or strategies that can lead to its success. A start-up business viability study can help entrepreneurs determine, at the onset, any possible return on investment and risks associated with their vision. Project or business viability assessments are usually executed through the following steps:
- Preliminary Analysis
- Projected Income Statement Design
- Market Survey
- Business Organisation and Operations Design
- Opening Day Balance Sheet Development
- Data Analyses and Review
- Finalising “Yes/No” Decision
When clients approach us with a service request, we usually walk them through the seven steps, ask questions, and provide a timeline for their project. Preliminary assessments are done first to benefit all parties—we can determine if the idea is viable before any resources are poured into it. We then design an income statement that critically assesses the anticipated business growth curve covering associated direct and indirect costs before conducting an in-depth market survey that realistically tests revenue estimations. The results we present after our analysis are able to inform them of the potential for dividends, rewards, risks, and any associated setbacks. Where our evaluations prove the impracticality of a business idea, we provide alternate strategies for the client to make an informed decision.
Budgeting and Forecasting Advisory
Financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting rely on a firm’s present and historical trends to determine strategic priorities, define realistic targets, and track and measure its growth trajectory. We equip the capacity of businesses to manage these strategic trends. A company’s accounts and finance unit is usually responsible for managing this process under the guidance of its financial officer. In the absence of such an agent, or where the finance office’s capacities aren’t up to par with the CFO needs of the company, a private CFO firm is usually engaged to handle those needs. Our finance analysts have executed more than one hundred assignments under this service. Our interventions assist businesses in deciding the quantum of change, growth, or improvement it needs, all of which are necessary for detailing their long- and short-term financial targets.
Business Valuation
In conducting business valuation, our experts perform tailored but routine due diligence on the specific enterprise, finance, and general company issues and documentation supporting the firm’s audit teams and clients.
Business valuation is determining an asset’s or organisation’s value. It is a crucial step in business finance because it allows prospective buyers the opportunity to understand the market and gauge the price of an asset or investment before buying or finalising a deal. Effective valuation enables prospective sellers to know their asset’s value and worth. It does this through the utility of the Cost, Market, and Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) approaches. The cost approach usually entails expenses to rebuild or restore an asset. It is commonly used in valuing assets in real estate, such as commercial property, new construction, or special-use properties. The Market Approach, on the other hand, is a method of determining the value of an asset based on the selling price of similar assets on the market. With the DCF approach, analysts estimate the value of an investment using its expected future cash flows. It is the most detailed and thorough approach to valuation modelling.
SMEs and business leaders have trusted our valuation methods for two decades. We perform valuations for most areas of finance, including Leveraged Buyouts (LBO), Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), corporate development, investment banking, equity research, private equity, etc. The three strategic plans that guide our valuation techniques are DCF analysis, trading multiples or public market multiples, and precedent transactions.
Market Expansion Strategies
A firm’s ability to successfully employ market expansion strategies suggests that it has fulfilled its current business demands. The process is simple: for businesses to expand, they can sell current services/products to new or emerging markets when the performance of the company’s existing sales channels hits its peak. We achieve this end by working with the client to create and utilise four strategies: market penetration, product development, market expansion and diversification.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Mergers and Acquisitions are arguably one of the most recognised terms in the business landscape. Simply stated, mergers are when two separate business entities come together to create a new, joint organisation and continue operations as one corporate entity. Typically, the type of merger selected by a company primarily depends on the motives and objectives of the entities participating in a deal. In contrast, an acquisition is when one business entity takes over or buys out another. There are several reasons businesses may implement M&A, but the main reason why enterprises join forces or sell to others is to create greater value for their stakeholders.
M&A can be murky, intricate, and tedious, often taking months to complete. Our M&A consultants perform multidisciplinary tasks depending on the transactional details and stages of a takeover or buyout. We have the expertise to facilitate the purchase or consolidation of companies from inception to the final step.
Financial Analysis and Presentation
Financial analysis presentation or reporting refers to standard business practices that give stakeholders an accurate overview of a firm’s finances, including their revenues, expenses, profits, capital, and cash flow, as formal records that provide in-depth insights into its financial information. Financial analysis can be performed in both investment finance and corporate finance situations. It evaluates businesses, projects, budgets, and other finance-related arrangements by synthesising financial data to establish their potential and suitability. Our experts use financial analysis presentations to analyse an enterprise’s stability, solvency, liquidity, or profitability to justify any monetary investment.
We examine a firm’s financial statements, including its income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, to set monetary policy, build long-term business activity plans, and identify investment projects. Our experts can help business leaders and fund managers make future decisions or review recorded business trends for past successes. We can also help investors choose the best possible investment opportunities through external financial analysis and reporting.
Business Plan Development
Business plans are detailed roadmaps containing a company’s objectives, strategic action points for growth, and how it aims to hit its targets. These roadmaps include the firm’s projected costs, revenues, sales, marketing, financial, and operational strategies and may be used to secure start-up capital from lenders and investors. Because they contain pertinent data about the enterprise, well-detailed business plans can attract investors even before the firm starts operations or establishes a firm footing in its sector. Developing these plans demand extensive market research, detailed orientation, financial analysis, marketing, sales, products, and industry-specific knowledge. There are four business plans, each serving specific results but achieving one objective.
Our business plans contain an executive summary and sections on marketing strategy and research; financial planning, forecasting, and analysis; products and services; and a budget. Our cross-sectoral team of experts assist our clients in developing business plans that win. For already existing businesses, we help shape vision, redefine a new direction, review, and periodically update your plans to reflect corporate goals that have been met or changed.
Market Research
Market research evaluates the viability of a new service or product through a study conducted directly with potential consumers from that industry. It may be carried out internally by a firm’s executives or outsourced to professionals. Findings from the survey allow businesses to locate their target market, gather and record feedback about a service or product, and make well-informed commitments for the company. Information obtained from market research is then used to customise marketing activities or determine consumers’ particular service preferences.
The in-house techniques we use at ECF Consultancy for practical market analysis are direct/indirect customer observation, interviews, surveys, focus groups, ethnographic tests, and secondary data (desk reviews). While we tailor our services to the unique requirements of our clients, we generally implement the following processes in conducting market analysis.
- Problem statement and definition
- Sample definition
- Data collection
- Data analysis
- Research Report
- Make and implement decisions backed by data
Investment Analysis
The investment landscape is not clean-cut and filed due to its multidisciplinary structure. Investment analysis is a general term for the diverse techniques of assessing financial, industry sectors, and investment trends. It is simply evaluating an investment for profitability and associated risk. Investigating an asset for income, risk, and resale value is termed an investment analysis. It can include evaluating individual safeguards such as stocks and bonds to determine their course of prices, threats (occurrence x event’s impact = risk), or potential yield, mapping out previous returns to predict prospects, or choosing the sort of investment that responds to an investor’s needs.
Our consultants employ bottom-up, top-down, technical, and fundamental approaches when designing an investment portfolio for our clients.
ERP Assessment and Implementation
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a type of software companies use to organise and administer their everyday business operations.