Management Consulting

Today, more than ever, the optimal strategic allocation of all corporate resources represent the key success factor and determines future competitive positioning. While financial, natural and human resources are becoming increasingly scarce, the strategic orientation and balancing of these value drivers is becoming truly critical to success.

allocate’s approach is focused on optimal deployment of these essential resources. From our long-lasting operational background in various industries and our profound experiences in the consulting sector we know that seniority, entrepreneurial thinking and solution-driven implementation are the decisive success factors for projects with external advisors.

Our clients’ challenges need to be solved jointly in a trustful approach with the management team and work force. We differentiate and qualify ourselves by the unique combination of a business-driven customized approach, in-depth expertise in selected industry sectors, best-in-class functional know-how, our comprehensive HR expertise, and the commitment to achieve sustainable value-adding results for our clients.

Find out what you are good at and match it with what the world wants and needs. – Henry Mintzberg

Strategic transformation is the core tool to bring the company in line with the key economic, technological and social megatrends affecting its ability to create value. By assessing the corporate business portfolio we identify value creating (or destroying) units. We adjust the positioning in the value chain to secure sustainability of returns. The competitive strategy will be based on core competences and success factors and positions the company favorably relative to key competitors.

On business unit level we develop segmented product strategies assuring channel or regional dominance. This allows the client to transform challenging objectives into implementation plans and strong free cash flows. While developing winning strategies allocate leverages the principle of balanced resource allocation and assures a mix of quick wins and long-term successes.

Financial resources are like “blood” for corporate bodies, they keep the “circulation” of corporate processes alive. But like with real bodies a proper management of the vital resource has a strong impact on the health and growth of corporates.

It is essential that a sufficient amount of financial resources (Cash Flow) is created, managed properly and reallocated into the businesses, investments and projects with most potential – which are to provide an increased return of Cash Flow considering the specific risk profile of a business. Indeed, securing liquidity at all times is a vital requirement for corporate survival. In this respect we often support clients in restructuring projects and financial engineering activities in order to secure liquidity and sufficient Cash Flow for future development. This includes consequent cost reduction to secure acceptable bottom line results but also the optimization of debt and loan conditions.

Once the Cash Flow has been secured the next challenge is to identify re-investment options which contribute to sustainable enhancement of corporate value (which is nothing else than future discounted Cash Flows). We have a proven approach to support companies in the evaluation of different investment opportunities, considering both sustainable fit to the corporate strategy but also short- and medium term financial return. This is on the one hand applicable for investments aiming at organic growth but it is also applicable to external growth through M&A. Here we often support our clients throughout the entire M&A value chain: from identification of acquisition target, to ranking/short listing, due diligence, evaluation and post merger integration. Most of all it has to be clarified if a transaction creates real added value, and that realized synergies and improvements exceed the purchase price significantly.

Another topic regarding investments is project finance. This may even include the formation of special purpose project development entities and offshore financing options which go beyond the scope of the balance sheet of single companies. But also in day to day operations we support our clients in optimizing their cash position and liquidity: within our proven Working Capital Management approach we have several levers to improve the cash position, like the reduction of stocks or an optimized management of debtor and creditor processes.

There is a generally rising awareness that many natural resources and raw materials are limited and that, due to the growing global demand for raw materials, is often associated with increasing prices and costs for those industries which require these natural resources. Furthermore there is growing consciousness that the usage of some natural resources may have a detrimental effect on the environment and that specific associated cost burdens like CO2 certificates will have another detrimental effect on the competitiveness of companies.

In the light of these developments we support our clients in making the best decisions regarding the usage of energy and materials. The most essential and effective improvement lever is the enhancement of energy and materials efficiency, simply extracting more benefit from the same amount of raw materials or reducing the consumption. These decisions are made on the basis of business cases for investment projects considering different price scenarios for energy and other raw materials. The improvement measures do not only focus on investments for reduced demand of energy and materials but include also a complete review of production schemes which may for example lead to a flattening of volatile load curves for energy demand. A specific topic within energy and materials efficiency is recycling which also helps to reduce the costs for new raw materials.

Beyond this focus on energy and materials efficiency we also support our clients to make the best choices for energy and material sources and allocate the usage to those fields which secure the highest added value. As an example, the conversion of hydrocarbons into chemicals is often a better option compared to the use as energy source.

The best possible use of energy and materials is often also associated with the Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) aspects which we consider as a quality topic and as an integrated component of the corporate strategy.

The synchronization of capacities and operational processes facilitates value enhancement. Successful corporate strategies must not only establish the enduring viability of the business but also deliver appropriate short-term results.

Based on our experience, this is in particular challenging in capital-intensive industries with long planning cycles; nevertheless, it’s vital to both short-term profitability and long-term sustainability. Moreover, project complexity requires cross-functional collaboration, synchronized processes and interfaces, state-of-the-art project management capabilities and creativity to seek for sound solutions – supported by rigorous cost management to protect and increase gained value simultaneously.

Therefore, the right allocation of capacities is the key success factor in almost all process industries. allocate provides advisory services in the following functional and operational segments:

• Corporate Transformation & Value Enhancement
• Process Optimization & Organizational Governance
• Post-Merger Integration & Change Management
• Procurement & Sourcing Excellence
• Integrated Supply Chain Management & Logistics
• Maintenance-Repair & Contractor Management

While the first three corporate programs address the optimization and synchronization of the general process and structural organization of our clients, the following three initiatives focus on operational key tasks in the daily business.

allocate professionals have supported international companies in comprehensive organizational transformation programs resulting in cost and resource efficient processes and operational leadership in key functional areas. The synchronization of all core processes and internal and external interfaces along the value chain are key challenges which we address with a comprehensive approach.