BF Diamond

The BF Diamond has been designed and developed to help business leaders visualize the status of their business at a point in time. Its’ power lies in the fact that it creates a holistic representation of the business fundamentals affecting the business as seen through the eyes of its’ senior management. Quite clearly the management team know and understand their business better than anyone else but all too often short term issues prevail over the long term strategic needs of the business. The BF Diamond with its’ extremely time efficient methodology enables the management team to review the goal and strategy of the business, decide relevant work programmes with Diamond-Clarity Consultants or other providers and visually monitor progress in 6 or 12 month intervals.

The BF Diamond takes inputs from an owner / director via a carefully designed survey that will take no more than 15 minutes to complete. This input is reviewed against certain criteria to create the visual BF Diamond with its’ traffic light colouring of the business fundamentals. The BF Diamond visual is accompanied with a short form report that provides explanations of the various segments of the BF Diamond. The report explanations and proposed recommendations are in the context of your business and the responses of management to the survey.

By agreeing to all or some of the proposals made by Diamond-Clarity Consultants and putting these into action your business will move forward towards its stated goal. To monitor this progress the survey and report are repeated within either a 6 or 12 month interval providing you with a visual comparative over time.

Goal

Having a clearly defined goal enables every business to set itself apart and encourage people to share in its vision. This is not only important for fund-raising, employees at all levels need to be able to share in the adventure. The goal also provides the objective for the business strategy allowing the company to act in cohesion.

Coalface Experience

A technology start up raised in successive rounds over £20 million without a business plan / goal. They have yet to deliver a saleable product or penetrate one sector of their market.  Can your business afford that?

Funding

Cash is the ultimate resource for enabling all businesses to achieve their goal. It needs to be constantly monitored and at times when funding is required it should be anticipated within the Business Plan. Obtaining funding to exploit your strategy will occupy a substantial proportion of the Board’s time justifying the planning and preparation required.

  • How do you control commitments? (Cash Management)
  • How will the stakeholders achieve a return from your business venture? (Returns)
  • Does the current business model match the original business plan? ( Business Model)

Coalface Experience

  • £300k equity raised for a technology start up for market expansion
  • £560 raised by grant application for the development and exploitation of new technology
  • £1 million raised for a £15 million SME seeking debt restructuring

Market

The constant changing nature of the market means that all businesses need to understand what is happening outside their ‘four walls.’ The challenge of persuading customers to try something new or maintaining interest in your product / service cannot be done in isolation;

  • How will you sell your product / service in your particular niche (Route to Market)
  • What is the size of the market and accessible market; what is your competition?( Market Analysis)
  • How will you entice your early adopters and stand out in a crowded market?( Unique Selling Points, USP)

Coalface Experience

We worked with a company to identify its’ USPs and find a route to market. The business had assumed that professional and academic approval of the product would bring the market to their door but third party sales were non- existent. Within 6 months we resolved these issues and secured the first commercial contract in an overseas market.

Product

The design of the product / service is time consuming and can create a ‘bunker mentality’ that only the designers and engineers really understand the value of the product. This attitude is reflected in the reaction to criticism from the market and the desire of the CTO to delay the release of the finished product. Deciding how good your product / service need to be before being released is demanding:

  • Does your product have the features that specifically address the market niche that you are addressing (Minimum Feature Requirements)
  • What are the plans for the future development of the product (Product Development)
  • How does the design and development process ensure that industry norms and standards are included (Standards)

Coalface Experience

A £multi-billion manufacturing group wanted to enter an adjacent market sector but required a new product range.  Having reviewed the market we identified the gap for an important product and developed a strategy for acquiring the technical know- how for the group to develop the product range. On launching the product first year sales were £3 million.

Resource Management

In order to deliver the goal the business needs to assemble a team with the skills and expertise. This starts with the directors of the business but all employees have a role to play in achieving the strategic objectives. In supporting the team to deliver the goal, the business will obtain other resources ie IT equipment and systems. Taken all together, resource management creates the need for control systems to be put in place to ensure that it is the business strategy that drives the expenditure.

  • Control system; a means of capturing relevant data; starting with paper records (Business Systems)
  • People are a business’ most valuable asset (Team)
  • Ensuring continual quality of your service or product (Quality Systems)

Coalface Experience

A SME with a £10m turnover was considering adding a director to the Board at a cost of approximately £100k.  Working with us, it was identified that the actual requirement was for a very good internal sales manager who was subsequently recruited at a cost of £50k.