Examples of coaching at startup / SME companies

The leader called on a VISCONTI partner to develop his business internationally by launching a toy trading company in Hong Kong. The aim was to meet the demand from the company existing retail clients and create access to new retailers outside Europe.

 

This support enabled him to reflect on the initial need, the format and the activities of the company to be created.

 

Supported by a VISCONTI coach, he worked on drawing up a detailed business plan, carrying out a call for tenders linked to strategic partners (lawyers, banks, chartered accountants) and executing the created business plan.

 

One year after its launch, the company generated a turnover of 5.5 M€, with a largely positive margin.

After raising €13 million in capital, the two co-founders of a digital startup specialised in the recruiting industry (sales of €3 million for 40 employees before the fund-raising) called on a VISCONTI partner to prepare and execute their growth plan.

 

This 4-year support mainly consisted of :

 

  • Changing the company’s organisation – Considering the strong annual growth, reorganisations  every six months had become a routine and not an exception.
  • Transforming the Management Committee (staffing, time management, improving technical skills of Directors, cohesion)
  • Internationalize the company in an ex nihilo logic

 

Today, the company has 140 employees and a turnover of €12 million. Its growth is still outstanding.

A company specialising in project management for installing air filtration in industrial environments (sales of 3 M€ for 8 employees) was a small challenger in its market.

 

The coach/coached duo worked on an offer designed to outperform the competition while creating much greater business value. This offer consisted in entering the market of predictive equipment maintenance via intelligent sensors (IOT), in a Saas logic.

 

This was the result of several workshops and then the implementation of an internal project plan lasting a year and a half, which has now led to a marketing strategy that is bearing all the expected results..

 

With an enterprise value of 1.5 M€ (50% of 3 M€), we expect to reach about 7 M€ (100% of 3 M€ + 400% of 1 M€).

We assisted a leading SME in the medical practice software industry (sales of €30 million) in its strategy of external growth through the acquisition (build up) and the sale of the new company to a mutual insurance company.

 

This support went through three different stages of one year each: consolidation of growth, purchase of companies and then sale.

 

During the first stage (sales. 12 M€), we totally redefined the organization and management of the SME, by :



  • Making the Management Committee more efficient (evolution of staffing, delegation, training, management by objectives)
  • Reallocating approximately 50% of the leader’s time

 

In the second stage, we acquired and integrated a company of comparable size in :

 

  • Redefining a new strategy
  • Setting up a project approach to quickly achieve synergy objectives
  • Reorganizing the company and in particular the Management Committee

 

The third step was to prepare the company for its sale, in particular by meeting ambitious business objectives and launching strategic projects with a high leverage effect.

The manager called on a VISCONTI coach to deal with the sustained growth of his BtoB IT security software publishing company (growth over 30% per year). Such a growth was financially virtuous but generated acute management problems linked to the exponential growth of the workforce and hence staff costs..

 

As part of his coaching activities, the coach challenged the manager on the organization of his company. It led him to conduct an in-depth reflection on :

 

  • The management of his time and agenda to be realigned with his business priorities 
  • The definition of existing and new job profiles and that of a structural organization
  • The framing and setting up of a Management Committee, the recruitment of a Sales Director and a CFO
  • The definition of objectives and evaluation systems for R&D engineers, customer service team and sales staff.
Coaching de dirigeant - Visconti Partners