Grow Your Business

Every organization has the potential for success. But what is the first step you should take toward unlocking that potential? At Effective Change, they believe the answer lies in visualizing the bigger picture – in understanding what the future holds and planning a strategy to get you there.

Effective Change supports and encourages the growth and success of new and existing organizations, as well as communities, by enabling them to adapt and thrive. Through our distinctive products and services, they can help you understand the four keys to unlocking your potential: identifying your vision, knowing your market, valuing your clients, and understanding yourself. An awareness of these keys will provide the basis for a strategic plan that will help your organization succeed and thrive.

And Effective Change has the tools to help your organization develop a solid grasp of the bigger picture. Ranging from market research and strategic planning to leadership consulting and business development, Effective Change can help you understand your organization’s and your customer’s needs in order to grow and thrive – in order to unlock your potential for success.

Strategic Plans And Action Plans

Is your interpretation of Strategic Planning either a few people behind closed doors or an outside consultant creating a document that is 1) top secret from the rank and file and 2) going to sit on a shelf ? While it is true that this method may result in increased revenues and growth (generally by accident), this method prevents the company from reaching its true potential.

Companies excel and prosper when there is a clear understanding, among all levels of the organization, about where the company is heading and what everyone’s role is in obtaining the objectives.

Effective Change can unlock your true potential by guiding your organization through the strategic planning process to create a living document that is accompanied by an action plan. The interactive process creates a shared vision for management and staff as well as a sense of purpose and direction. Because the plan becomes a living document that is regularly used, evaluated, and updated, managers are accountable for their goals and are better able to organize the work of their departments.

Their strategic planning process is comprehensive and can include a completeenvironmental assessment for your organization.

As one of their clients, the CEO of an $80 million/year manufacturing company, stated after his plan was completed "My day is so much freer now. People used to come to me constantly with little issues, now they all know what needs to be done and they just do it." This particular company has presently increased its revenues 33% since engaging Effective Change’ assistance with their plan in 1999. The company is projecting an additional 50% growth over the next 18 months.

Marketing and planning

Effective Change offers a wide variety of marketing services. These services include market analysis and segmentation, new product development, and testing of new products and services. They can also guide the development of a Marketing Department within your organization and train your own staff to handle the function internally. They can conduct customer needs assessment surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, and develop marketing plans to grow your business. They can work with your advertising agency to create and test your own marketing materials, or you can work with our strategic partner Fishtank Creative to develop your advertising & communications plan.

Through the use of secondary research, surveys and focus groups, Effective Change can help you identify your market potential, identify your target markets as well as the products and services needed in those areas. They can also test the feasibility of your new ideas to ensure you gain the most market share possible to reach your potential.

Corporate Culture Assessment and Change

Do you know what your corporate culture says about you? Is there a difference between the way you say it is and the way it really is? Do your policies reflect the way it really happens? When employee morale is low, or when the corporate culture is dysfunctional, the overall revenues and efficiencies of the company suffer.

Through employee satisfaction surveys and focus groups, Effective Change can assess your corporate culture and give recommendations on how to make improvements and changes. Effective Change can help your company to find its culture or change it’s existing culture to be less dysfunctional and be more in line with your corporate strategies and goals. To also improve employee satisfaction and reduce turnover, Effective Change can create a leadership development program within your organization to ensure the teachings of your corporate culture and to develop your employees into the leaders you need as you grow your business.

As part of the corporate culture analysis, Effective Change and their affiliates can also conduct an ethics analysis of your organization. Analyzing your business ethics is not primarily a check on legal or moral issues. It is a discussion of the reasons, assumptions and implications underlying an organization’s actions and decisions. In fact, this analysis often forms the basis for seeing or refining your organization’s vision, mission and strategy. This analysis helps a company’s leadership to critically examine their organization’s future, its strategies, its practices and its policies.

For some of its past clients, Effective Change has tested performance evaluation systems and make changes and developed new performance evaluation systems based on the employees feedback and what really matters to them. They have also increased morale in organizations by identifying the differences between the way things really work and the way things are supposed to work, and making the changes to make sure that policies, procedures and reward systems actually provides an incentive to promote the attitudes and work habits that your company needs and wants to be successful.

Feasibility Studies

Do you have an idea about a new product or service, but don’t know if it will work, how much it will cost or who is the target? Effective Change unlocks all the barriers in your way by conducting a feasibility study. By utilizing market research techniques and secondary research, Effective Change can identify your target market and test the new product/service and make a determination of how viable it will be, and whether or not it would cost effective to develop the new product.

Customer Satisfaction Research

The staff at Effective Change represents more than 20 years experience in customer satisfaction research. It is significantly cheaper to maintain or keep a client/customer than it is to go out and find a new one. Do you really know what your customers feel or think? How they would truly rate your services? What other opportunities could your company possibly fulfill for them? Effective Change can obtain the "voice of your customer" and find out what their needs are and how they view your organization in all aspects of their dealings with you. Utilizing market research techniques such as focus groups and surveys, Strategy Solutions can find the "voice of your customer".

In the past, by using the "voice of the customer", Effective Change has found many successes for their clients. For one medium sized hospital in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Effective Changewas able to increase their Obstetrics market share by more than 13% by monitoring their customer satisfaction and performing specific studies to identify changes needed in that specific service line. They also have helped one of our manufacturing clients restructure their relationship and inventory system in order to better meet their customer’s requests of on site inventory monitoring, which improved satisfaction with the organization and let to increased sales of products to those international corporations.

Financial Capabilities Anyalysis for Business & Industry

It is a good idea to assess the financial capability of your organization during the initial stages of the planning process. The purpose of the financial capabilities analysis is to determine your organization’s financial capability to make strategic investment.

There are only three ways to fund a strategic plan: cash generated from operations, incurring or increasing debt or fundraising (seeking investors/venture capital, etc.).

Our qualified staff can assist you in preparing your financial capabilities analysis, or you can follow this outline:

Financial Performance/Investment Summary

1. 3-5 year history

2. Performance Includes:

• Operating Margin
• Excess Margin
• Cash generated from operations
• Less: Capital Expenditures
• Less: Investments in affiliates
• Less: Strategic Investments (already designated from previous years)
• Net Increase (decrease) in cash/reserve/endowment funds
• Unrealized appreciation (depreciation) in investments

3. Investments include:

• Routine capital additions
• Strategic investments already committed

Estimate of Consolidated Debt Capacity 
Balance Sheet Capitalization Approach

1. Long term debt (project out 3 years)
2. Cash and cash reserves
3. Net assets

4. Incremental borrowing capacity at target capitalization ratio of:

• 25% - calculate figure
• 30% - calculate figure
• 35% - calculate figure

Cash Flow Approach

1. Net Income (project out 3 years)
2. Interest expense
3. Depreciation/amoritization
4. Cash flow available for debt service
5. Existing annual debt service

6. Incremental borrowing capacity @ target debt service coverage of:

• 3.00 – calculate figure
• 3.25 – calculate figure
• 3.50 – calculate figure
• 3.75 – calculate figure
• Assumes incremental borrowing at 5.5% annual rate amortized over 15 years

Calculation of minimum cash reserve requirements

• Projected cash operating expenses
• Expense per day
• Target days cash on hand
• Estimated minimum cash reserve

Summary of financial capability:

1. Total cash & cash reserves (forecast out 3 years)
2. Incremental debt capacity
3. Total available sources
4. Less:

• Desired days cash on hand reserve
• Endowment
• Reserves

5. Cash available for strategic investment