Client: Fortune 500 company in the energy industry
The relationship with this client began with a single engagement focused on business processes, and has grown over time. The Equitium Group’s consulting engagement accomplished the following:

• Developed new company aspirations
  • Updated the company’s mission statement to better express its fundamental purpose
  • Defined a compelling 10-year vision to focus the company’s leadership and provide a destination for the corporate strategy
    
    
• Strengthened the company’s business processes
  • Defined the purpose and scope for every department to supplement organization charts
  • Implemented a corporate calendar to transform the company from an “ad hoc meeting company” to a disciplined enterprise with clear target dates
  • Designed, agreed, and implemented the format, content, and logistics for weekly, monthly, and quarterly corporate department and business segment reviews
  • Introduced dashboards to monitor every part of the business based on a comprehensive set of metrics
  • Created training material for executive and analyst seminars. Topics included working efficiently, problem-solving techniques, effective meetings and conference calls, coaching
    
    

Client: Private Equity Investor in High Tech
As part of the due diligence effort for an acquisition in the high tech services space, Equitium helped a client better understand the market and key success factors of the industry, and developed a perspective on management’s growth plan. The particular contribution included the following activities:

• Provided a description of major technologies involved and how they interact, expressed in layman’s terms for ease of understanding and communication
• Developed a perspective on major trends and the future direction of the technology, based on interviews with industry experts and an extensive literature search
• Sized the overall market opportunity and growth rate, and the market share in the relevant geographic region
• Analyzed key customer buying factors and success factors going forward, as well as the positioning of the target company along those dimensions
• Provided an assessment of management’s growth plans, highlighting potential risks

The project was completed in 3 weeks, culminating in a comprehensive analysis including a 100-page report of Equitium’s findings. Research included interviews with many industry experts and customers, and numerous reports and articles. The final package delivered to the client also included interview notes from experts and customers.

Client: Private Equity Firm Investor in Health and Fitness
As part of a private equity firm’s due diligence effort in making an acquisition, Equitium’s consultants assessed the market potential of the target company’s fitness franchise concept in the U.S. and determined the competitive advantage of the company vis-à-vis its competitors. Equitium’s contribution included the following activities:

• Assessed the size of the fitness market sub-segment appropriate for the company’s concept, both top down and bottom up
• Interviewed over 30 industry participants to assess inherent demand and understand marketplace trends
• Analyzed franchisee economics to determine their long-term survivability
• Identified and explored key barriers to entry for any potential players entering into the sub-segment
• Evaluated seven competitors:
  • Identified assets and capabilities
  • Conducted mystery shopping interviews and visits
  • Defined key comparison dimensions for the fitness market sub-segment, and contrasted the target company with its competitors on these key dimensions
• Gathered analogies from other industries to help predict the evolution of the fitness industry sub-segment