Services for Growing Businesses

Strategic Plannning

It is well known that a business must plan ahead to be successful. Unfortunately, all too often the pressures of keeping the business going on a daily basis prevent strategic planning being given the attention it needs. The result is invariably rushed judgements, over or under capacity and missed opportunities.

All business owners need a planning adviser who can act as a sounding board and provide a detached and impartial viewpoint. A planning adviser who can probe your own thinking to help develop the strategy. A planning adviser who can help you grasp the appropriate courses of action before it's too late. A planning adviser who helps you to achieve your ambitions.
We bring a considerable breadth of commercial experience that enables us to be innovative, constructive and practical in our advice.

Business Plans

Business plans are not optional!

Most people think of a business plan as being a document that has to be produced at great time and expense when an organisation is seeking external funding.

But think of this; a recent study of small companies found that those with an internal business plan have an average of 50% more revenue and profit growth than those without one!

Don't be put off producing one. Working with us as a 'fresh pair of eyes', you will be surprised what you discover about your own business and aspirations. Here are some reasons why an internal business plan is easier to produce than an external one. They:
  • tend to be much shorter
  • are more practical and detailed
  • focus more on problem solving
  • are more action orientated
  • require considerably less management time to complete

It's easy to get caught up in the worry that writing a business plan is going to be too complicated and time consuming. The key is the word "plan". A plan is simply a way of thinking about how you are going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. A business plan is simply a map that describes how your business is going to succeed and the strategies that will be used to get there.

The benefits of an internal business plan include

  • Defining clearly what you want your business to achieve so that you and your staff are excited about the future and inspired to reach those goals
  • Being clear about what is getting in the way of your business's progress so that you can work out how to eliminate those obstacles
  • Determining how each different area of the business is contributing (or not!) to the ultimate goals
  • Helping you to assess whether the strategies you are using are effective or not
  • Shaping your immediate action plan, focused on value adding areas
  • Gaining a clear idea of the strategic direction of the business that can be readily communicated to staff, customers, suppliers and investors.

We have produced hundreds of business plans over the years and have a good handle on what works and what doesn't. Contact us today to see how we can help you implement your own business plan quite painlessly!

INTERIM MANAGEMENT

Interim managers go in to a business for a short time to carry out a specific task or to solve an identified problem.
A good interim manager needs to possess four basic qualities that will differentiate him or her from the pack:

  • Leadership: it will take a lot of personal authority to ensure things are done by staff who may not know the person.
  • Adaptability: each organisation has its individual problems, unique structure and method of working. It would be disastrous to arrive with a pre-set solution or fixed attitudes.
  • Organisation and planning: the sort of person who, when asked for a specific piece of paper, would be able to lay his or her hands on it instantly.
  • Results orientation: he or she craves achievement and evidence that a task has been successfully completed.

At Continuum, we have unrivalled experience based on our own personal experiences. Of the good times when we launched new products and services, when we had periods of mass recruitment, when we floated companies because the market values were sky high. And of the bad times when we closed satellite branches, when we undertook large scale redundancies, when we withdrew products from market, even when we closed companies.

We can provide expert professionals for any duration in most areas including General Management, Finance, Marketing, IT and Human Resources.