Managing your risk
In our experience as businesses grow the owner naturally focuses on sales, products and services. But this can mean back office processes can get overlooked and eventually compromise business potential. Do your existing processes and systems support your future growth plans?
- Compliance - The compliance agenda continues to change and become more onerous. This isn’t just dictated by government bodies, but also by customers’ demands, and banking institutions. Have you reviewed what your requirements are and can you respond to multiple compliance needs down the line? Examples of this include the data protection act and Payment Card Industries (PCI) security standards compliance.
- Systems - In the past, low cost off-the-shelf packages may have met your reporting and processing requirements. But now you are a larger more complex business do your systems have the flexibility and reporting capabilities to support your information needs? Do your systems underpin good management decision making, as well as cope with the increased transactional volumes of your business?
- Business Continuity Planning - High growth organisations often have over-reliance on key individuals or processes which can lead to single points of failure. Do you know what your current risks are? What changes have you made to mitigate these?
- Financial due diligence - As you grow you may need to source additional funding through banks or other re-financing options. In the current climate, institutions often perform due diligence on potential customers to obtain greater comfort around their investment. How would your business stand up to a review of the robustness of your systems and processes?
How we can help
Making the shift from an informal culture to a more controlled and regulated environment involves cultural change and that can be a huge challenge. You need to balance the right level of control for the right cost. We can help you understand where to focus and prioritise in line with your business objectives, with particular emphasis on:
- Strengthening your corporate governance and finance environment to make sure you are using your technology and systems to drive control, lower costs and increase efficiency.
- Data - compliance with legal, systems and process requirements to avoid potential financial or reputational implications.
- Reviews of technology/projects to help iron out existing problems or make choices around your technological direction as you grow.
We can work with you in these areas and also provide quick insight by benchmarking your business against others. Having an accurate picture of where you are now will help you plan for the future.
