Technically speaking, the way we do this comes down to the following:

Determining “where we are” (or the “start-off point” of the Client’s business) in the beginning.
Determining strategic resources upon which it would make most sense to build a new vision of the company’s development.
Locating the most attractive business (located inside) and market (located outside) opportunities.
Combining the results of the first three steps into a detailed vision of the company's development; having the key people approve it and believe in its success. Prioritizing and assigning the realization of these opportunities to different future time periods.
Developing parts of the big plan in detail (regardless of the business aspect – marketing, logistics, IT etc) and helping coordinate the implementation of the most sophisticated parts of the plan. To make a marketing-related illustration, we regularly develop new products, new brands (incl. positioning and naming), their pricing, the approach to their distribution and all aspects of promotion, including digital promotion

(see www.cleverkids.com.ua for an example of a highly productive site we developed for one of Ukraine’s largest kindergartens).
Updating or developing new motivation, evaluation, accounting, reporting and control systems. Updating or developing and implementing new business processes.
Updating or developing a new organizational structure (sometimes also a new legal structure), corresponding to the new vision, filling it with the right people (we usually find them ourselves or assist in the selection). Close progress monitoring: correcting the plan, structure, processes and replacing certain specialists, if necessary. Usually, about 20% of the initial vision of business development requires corrections over the first 2-3 years down the road.
Helping communicate change and new vision inside the company. Please also see this information in the form of a different diagram

Depending on a particular situation, a different number of the above steps can be carried out simultaneously. Also, the sequence of the steps may somewhat differ from case to case. For example, the company situation is sometimes such that once it’s clear that we need a new, much stronger sales force as soon as possible, we start building it fast, while we continue developing the overall detailed vision of what the company will focus on over the next several years.


WHAT TO EXPECT FROM COOPERATION

Employing the team of experts trained to handle with excellence every aspect of business activity within our regular 3-year engagement with a Client’s business, we usually manage to achieve the following:

Prepare a new, much stronger base for dynamic development in the coming years and produce the first positive (incl. financial) signs of change.

The big period of growth begins, which is persuasively reflected in the company’s profits.

As the growth continues to gain pace, the company - now generating record financial results - begins to aim at, approach (depending on where we started), or strengthen its nationwide (worldwide, in one case so far) industry leadership.

In smaller companies the 1st year results resemble more those of the 2nd year, as described above. In large companies, each year’s results, as described above, may take up to 50% more time to achieve.

SELF-SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

During the whole period of change, we usually don’t take formal positions in the company. Yet, through the close cooperation and approval of our steps with the Owner (“all” or only “key” steps, depending on the Owner’s choice of level of detail he or she wants to be involved in), we exert enough influence to drive change of any depth and scale. Our aim is to help create beautiful, commercially aggressive, highly profitable, and - what’s also very important - self-sustainable businesses. By the latter we mean that the whole business system must function properly after we leave the company.

RICH EXPERIENCE WITH BUILDING UP START-UPS

Traditionally, a noticeable part of our interim management business has been building up projects for our Clients “from scratch.” Until 2009 we even used “specializing in new ventures” as our company slogan, which has not corresponded to the reality since then. Nevertheless, at any point of time we now comprehensively manage building up at least 2-3 companies “from scratch.” Although it is not necessarily more difficult than turning around and/or building up existing companies, we underline our successful experience in this particular area as it requires special qualities and skills of our people. Find out more about our experience with start-up projects in the section Project Evaluation, Concept or Strategy Development.

INDUSTRY DE-SPECIALIZATION

Rain works in a number of industries: various retail and distribution, food production, real estate, healthcare, electronics, recreation, telecom, oil and gas, energy, chemical industry, agriculture, wood processing and others. We believe such industry de-specialization gives us a competitive edge. Supporting this belief is our ability to:

  • have a fresh view of industries and their settings (this regularly helps us see opportunities that experienced industry experts might not see!),
  • apply one industry’s best practice to another (this often produces excellent results!),
  • spot general consumer trends better.

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