Case Studies Archives : GUILD Consulting

Pre-acquisition Due Diligence

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:41:27 +0000

Size
$5M – $10M

Situation
The client was considering the acquisition of a similar-sized company which provided services in an adjacent vertical.

Approach

GUILD performed:
1. due diligence of the business, including the identification of potential synergies,
2. weekly meeting facilitation with the potential Seller,
3. financial valuation (using different methods),
4. financials reports for seeking a bank loan, and
5. drafting the purchase agreement

Subject to a potential close, GUILD was further contracted to be the integration manager

Results
After a month of discussions, Client made an offer to purchase the business, but the offer was not accepted. Based on several considerations, Client and Seller agreed against revising the offer and revisiting the opportunity at a later time provided the Seller strengthens specific areas of the business to reduce the risk in the transition of ownership.

We have anonymized some information to retain clients’ confidentiality. The results are real and we will be happy to talk to you about our past work. Email us at solutions@guild.im or call (808) 729-5850.

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Business Strategy Development for a Local Franchise

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:40:03 +0000

Size
Less than $5M

Situation
The franchise owner of a leading global corporate training provider was unable to adopt major franchise offerings to the local market needs and was consequently, losing business to other trainers.

Approach

Based on the SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis, GUILD advised the Client on:

developing a Capabilities-Market Needs matrix and tweaking programs based on customer feedback
developing a separate website (vs having a page on franchise website)
leveraging the global brand to attract fewer, but larger corporate customers, and
incentivizing training program graduates to provide referrals

Results
Client felt confident that refocusing on larger organizations with recurring training needs is the right path forward and she is committed to pursuing that in the near future.

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Achieving Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Research

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:38:23 +0000

Size
$200M+

Situation
A state university committed to both pure and applied research received a 5-year $20-million National Science Foundation grant to undertake new, interdisciplinary, and stakeholder-driven research on freshwater security.

Approach
To help launch the effort, achieve a common purpose, and prevent splintering or conflict, stakeholders were interviewed to understand their uses for new empirical knowledge.

Results
A collateral effort brought more than 20 researchers from different disciplines together to develop dispute prevention protocols that would avoid future conflicts over grants, authorship, and publications.

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Difficult Conversations for (Sustainable) Economic Development

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:37:06 +0000

Situation
Papua New Guinea faced a true sustainability dilemma. 50,000 people had been affected by river contamination from a gold and copper mine. At the time the mine produced 20% of the country’s gross domestic product but it had disrupted traditional food security systems webs by putting 90,000 tons of daily rock waste and tailings into the local river.

Approach
The Partner facilitated 18 months of challenging meetings with delegates from the nine affected river regions.

Results
The discussions concluded with a Memorandum of Agreement that provided impacted communities with US $350 million in funds, projects, and services.

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Rethinking the Business Model

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:35:11 +0000

Size

$11M – $100M

Situation

A 150-year-old regional manufacturer of bread, pastries, cookies, and snacks was at a moment of inflection: increased global competition, aging industrial plant, and rising supply and delivery costs.

Approach

Owners and executives met for a series of difficult discussions leading to long-term company reorganization and a refocusing of fewer products and increased markets.

Results

The facilitated discussion created a better and shared understanding of the situation.

We ended the planning meetings with a shared definition of success, a clearer set of priorities and accountability for achieving them.

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Building a Recruitment Engine

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 10:31:49 +0000

Size
$200M+

Situation
The client was unable to fill open positions due to rapid sales growth and a tight labor market. They believed the staff constraints were leading to a drop in the quality of their customer service delivery (as measured by Net Promoter Score).

Approach
GUILD engaged talent acquisition experts, and through their industry connections, conducted interviews with recruitment heads of some of the fastest growing organizations in the world. Research topics included recruiting philosophy, process flow, metrics, recruiter compensation, employer branding and applicant tracking system (ATS).

Results
Client revised job descriptions, recruiting workflow and metrics. Some talent sourcing activities were outsourced to a contact made during our project, and a new ATS was implemented within the next quarter (GUILD managed that implementation project as well).

Clear steps were identified to create a stronger employer brand in Hawaii.

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Pricing for a Service Offering

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 08:31:40 +0000

Size
$200M+

Situation
The client wanted to offer an applicant tracking software (ATS) as an add-on service to its existing customers who were charged on a PEPM (per employee per month) model.

Approach
GUILD broke down the cost of software and labor into its various components, like setup and training, integrations, licenses, admin support, etc.

We then organized clients into different brackets based on employee count, and incorporate a minimum allowable profit margin.

Finally, we created a tool to allow salespeople a range of pricing options on PEPM-basis, and the ability to charge for implementations upfront or over time.

Results
Client successfully introduced the add on service and increased its revenue and profitability from some of its largest accounts.

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Post-Acquistion Integration

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 08:26:44 +0000

Size
$200M+

Situation
The client acquired its largest competitor. However, due to a legacy of aggressive competitiveness, contrasting cultures and vastly different processes they were having a tough time integrating and plugging an exodus of top talent from the acquired firm.

Approach
“GUILD created an integration project team comprised of personnel from various departments of both organizations. We rapidly created high-level AS IS and TO BE process maps for various processes and developed a shared, final state process.

Then team after team, we trained the staff on the new processes. We also worked closely with the operational leaders to ensure the two teams were ready to work as one going forward.

Finally, we set a target date to sunset the technology platforms supporting the inherited processes, and by doing so, set the end date for those processes.”

Results
The staff in the acquired organization valued the clarity of our methodology and knowing what the end goal was. The entire organization benefitted from weekly updates on the progress and what was still outstanding. Top management was able to support the project team with major roadblocks. The integration was formally completed within 1 quarter of project start.

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Revamping the Talent Assessment Process

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 08:24:02 +0000

Size
$200M+

Situation
The client wanted to improve the quality and consistency of the talent assessment process. The existing assessments were annual, very labor intensive for the managers and the ratings were quite inconsistent across managers. The client also wanted to have more frequent assessment cycles and add succession planning as an annual activity.

Approach
“GUILD engaged two experienced performance appraisal experts to redesign the assessments. We agreed on 3 cycles a year, including an annual succession planning process for mapping individuals on performance vs potential using the 9-box.

The 6-month assessment cycles began with an employee self-assessment. Then the manager evaluation process started with the CEO providing feedback to the executive team, who in turn provided feedback to the directors, and so on down the organizational hierarchy. The senior managers (starting with the CEO) used their feedback session as an opportunity to coach their direct reports on how to do better evaluations.

Finally, we designed a weekly check-in process for every employee with their managers aimed to provide more real-time feedback and take out any surprises from the assessment cycles.”

Results
“Executive team accepted all recommendations with minor changes.

The first assessment cycle began immediately after our project ended. It was an efficient process which led to good feedback from the managers and employees alike.

Client was shopping for an automated tool to streamline the weekly checkin process.”

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Simultaneous Migration of CRM and Accounting Systems

Iqbal Ashraf — Sat, 11 May 2019 07:59:40 +0000

Size
$5M – $10M

Situation
The client was using a customized, on-premise version of SAGE MAS 200 – a mid-market accounting system. This system was integrated with a proprietary database that they sold subscriptions to. Due to heavy customization, the accounting system had been unable to keep up with the updates to the software and consequently, had developed several technical glitches over time.

Not only did the client want to replace the accounting system, but they also wanted to move from their existing CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) to SalesForce, and integrate it with the new accounting system and their proprietary database. In addition to solving current issues, the client wanted to start offering pay-per-use services to self-service customers and accept real-time payments from them.

Due to the complex integrations and simultaneous implementations of both – accounting and CRM systems, the project had several reversals before GUILD was engaged to manage the project.

Approach
GUILD put all technical work on hold to first get buy-in from all stakeholders on the new process workflow. We spoke to the process owners to arrive at the AS-IS and TO-BE process views (with automated and manual steps). These were then presented to the entire team and we facilitated a rich discussion on what changes must happen.

Once the TO-BE process was agreed, we worked with the client’s in-house technology architect to create the visual representation of the technology stack. Due to the complexity of the project, the TO-BE map and the technology stack had Phase 1 and Phase 2 versions.

Once Phase 1 scope was final, we provided the technical team with the business requirements and limited our activities to advisory work.

Results
The buy-in for process changes and the phasing of the implementation provided the much-needed alignment for the technical team to break the stakeholder logjam.

The documents and diagrams created by GUILD served as business requirements for the technical implementation team.

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