Would You Like To Dramatically Improve Your Company In An Economic Downturn?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 10:55 am

Can you use this kind of improvement in your portfolio companies?

· Telecom – Increased revenue by 33% in 7 months

· Manufacturing – Improved productivity by 62% in three months

· Aerospace – Reduced cost by 20% in 6 months

· Financial Services – Increased Sales by 20% in 3 months

· Construction – Reduced costs by 20% in 6 months

· Healthcare – Increased Patient Satisfaction (10%) & Reduced Staff Turnover (36%) in 6 months

These are just a few recent results that a change to participative based management has allowed companies to achieve.

The use of Participative Management tools in your portfolio companies quickly increase bottom line results. Benefits to the Portfolio Manager include:

1) Leveraging an asset that few companies utilize effectively – human capital.

2) Dramatically increasing performance in portfolio companies.

3) Measuring and improving employee commitment, motivation, and other lead indicators which directly impact your bottom-line.

“Private Equity needs to create sustainable and fundamental value beyond financial engineering” – World Economic Forum 2008

Traditional financial engineering and improved technology will only get you so far. Utilize an untapped resource in your portfolio companies — human capital.Conventional management models will realize typical operational ability and may not take advantage of organizational resources. As Boston Consulting Group experts Heino Meerkatt and Heinrich Liechtenstein advise,“ . . . [Private-Equity firms] should prepare all their portfolio companies for a long and deep recession, focusing on operational improvements. As the peak-performing private-equity companies have demonstrated, operational value formation contains the solution empowering success in this economy. This will be the most critical differentiator in today’s recession, especially for the 50 percent of private-equity firms that are hovering between survival and extinction.”

Experts agree that in order to achieve excellence in the workplace, creativity and innovation are critical.

“The key to survival and success does not lie in the rational quantitative approaches, but rather in a commitment to irrational, difficult to measure things like people, quality, creativity, innovation, and developing the flexibility to meet changing conditions” – Tom Peters and Bob Waterman

Peters and Waterman tell us we need to look beyond traditional metrics and harness intangible resources such as human commitment, motivation and trust. These intangibles (lead indicators) impact our tangible business results (lag indicators).Until just recently it was determined too intricate to monitor and calculate intangibles. However, even the National Accounting Standards Board( NASB) recommends that metrics for intangibles appear on financial reports.

At hand is a demonstrated practice that makes best use of tangible and intangible assets. We call it the “secret sauce,” it is very distinct from other management models because it utilizes tools and methods focused on human performance – a frequently overlooked factor that directly impacts the bottom line. Using strategic management tools, forward-thinking businesses obtain fast and powerful results.Rather than the carrot and stick method or taking a laissez faire approach this method provides a stable foundation that is easy and productive. Participative Management make optimum use of an organization’s human capital by providing people in the workplace innovative tools that allow them to increase company performance.Moreover, it imbues a sense of ownership amongst employees, which elicits worker dedication and fervor.

Motivation the Catalyst in Profit Formula – National Underwriter

John C. Bower, executive vice-president of Fidelity Union Life, noted, “a motivated workforce is essential strategy for enhancing company profits. Highly motivated employees have a tendency to be more productive, which enhances profitability . . . Companies with the productivity edge usually outperform their competition.”

Recent Scholarly Work Supports These Critical Principles:

Improving Business Failure Prediction: Benchmarking Financial Models with Human and Social Capital –Journal of Private Equity 2009

“Research on entrepreneurship and firm performance indicates that human and social capital has emerged with strong predictive ability for business continuation.”

As little as 1/3 to ½ of most companies’ stock market value is accountable for today by hard assets such as , property, plant and equipment. The growing share of value lies in intangible assets—Harvard Business Review 1998

We are moving from the Information Age to the Intellectual Age according to Richard Barrett (management consultant-business). Prosperity creation will progressively derive from the enhancement in value of intangibles. Examples of intangibles are human motivation, commitment, and trust.

In the recent article, “Human Capital Formation and Foreign Direct Investment in Foreign Countries” Koji Miyamoto writes:

“One of the characteristics of rich industrial economies is the availability of a workforce with a high level of human capital. . . [L]ong time series trends in educational attainment and economic growth during the last century indicate that [Human Resource Development] and economic prosperity went hand in hand.”

“Private Equity Companies need better management practices in their portfolio companies –“ World Economic Forum 2008

During this recession Private Equity firms will have to hold on to their portfolio companies longer and adapt their business models to accommodate the downturn. Private Equity firms can adapt their business models by focusing on improving operational performance and internal capabilities for sustained long-term results.

Caridas Consulting International (management consultant-business)

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