Recent Transactions

About SC&H Capital

SC&H Capital - an affiliate of SC&H Group, LLC - offers a portfolio of services that assist companies throughout the entire life cycle of the business. Our services help companies to grow the business organically, to expand the business through acquisitions, and to develop the optimal exit strategy. Led by a team with experience in the fields of buying, growing, and selling businesses, SC&H Capital provides the methodology, tools, and resources to define and execute clear business and transactional strategies.

Our services include:

• Transaction Advisory
• Strategic Planning
• Corporate Finance Advisory
• Capital Markets Advisory
• Tax Advisory

Our professionals focus on consistently providing value and delivering effective outcomes everyday – not just on the day our clients decide to sell the business.

For more information on SC&H Capital, please visit us on the web at www.scandh.com/cc.

Welcome

We are happy to provide you with another edition of M&A Spotlight.  With the beginning of a new decade we are seeing a continued emphasis in very strategic deals and cautious capital market activity.  Our article in this edition of the M&A Spotlight is written with those trends in mind.

We are especially grateful to our clients and referral sources as it is because of these strong relationships that we are able to advise so many companies in their business transactions.

As always, our SC&H Capital team is prepared to invest time getting to know your business. For more information on our services or to schedule a complimentary advisory session, please call me at (410) 785-8049.

Best Regards,
Christopher Helmrath, Managing Director

Just-In-Time Strategic Planning

By Christopher Helmrath, Managing Director, SC&H Capital

The business paradigm shifts that have come as a result of the past 24 months have also affected how businesses conduct strategic planning. Previous business plans, forecasts and assumptions have been fraught with incredible swings in market demand and changes in how people and businesses are conducting themselves. Where strategic planning was once seen as a guide map for predicting the future of the upcoming 3-5 years, business owners should now view strategic planning in a much shorter time horizon.

According to Walt Shill, head of the North American management consulting practice for Accenture Ltd., "Strategy as we knew it, is dead. Corporate clients have decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision making are much more important than simply predicting the future". In the same way that many businesses have adopted a "just-in-time" inventory management policy to reduce obsolescence, business managers need to adopt the same thinking in their business planning. Taking advantage of opportunities when they are presented will become a hallmark of the most successful and valuable businesses of tomorrow. In order to take full advantage of this approach, company leaders will need to have a solid understanding of what is happening in real time.

Communication should be more about listening than talking; this will allow you to gain a key understanding of what is making your customers and prospects adapt to the markets they serve. Customers and prospects should get involved in this process, as well as key people that are involved in the markets that are served. For example, given the incredibly turbulent capital markets and the increasing difficulty to borrow money, include bankers, lending sources and accountants that specialize in the types of customers that you are serving now and those that you wish to serve in the future. These sources will have contact with your target market and will have a very good understanding of what challenges are being faced and what solutions they are most looking to incorporate. Companies that take this comprehensive and shorter term approach will be more likely to capture opportunities as they present themselves.

Being open to fast moving opportunities can be better handled when the business owner takes a scenario planning approach to business planning. Scenario planning was developed over 50 years ago and has been used in turbulent times very successfully. (Click here for more information on scenario planning: http://www.netmba.com/strategy/scenario/.) In the 1970 oil embargo crisis, Royal Dutch Shell catapulted itself into the top echelon of oil companies because they had created a plan in case the scenario of an oil embargo materialized. They acted swiftly to the situation while their competition was still trying to figure out what was happening. Scenario planning is not about predicting the future, it is about describing what set of distinct future outcomes are possible. Determining how to handle these plausible outcomes will better enable the organization to take advantage of opportunities.

This type of thinking requires managers to be more nimble and willing to accept "out of the box" strategies. In order to do so, it is imperative that the organization consider the three following points:

1. What variables can I and can’t I control?
1. What services can I offer?
2. Where can I offer them?
3. What markets can I serve?
4. Who are my prospects? They may not be who they were the last time I went through this process.
2. What may seem trivial today but may be market changing tomorrow?
3. Do I have multiple scenarios in mind at all times and do I have a plan to attack each one on short notice?

With this thinking as a baseline business owners will be able to build a more dynamic and valuable business for the years to come.

For more information about Strategic Planning, contact Christopher Helmrath: 703-287-5991 or chelmrath@scandh.com.

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This communication does not represent a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities.

Securities offered through Stout Causey Capital Corporation, Member FINRA/SIPC.
Licensed to sell securities in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia. SC&H Capital is a registered trade name of Stout Causey Capital Corporation, a subsidiary of SC&H Group, Inc. SC&H Group, Inc. is a member of SC&H Group, LLC.

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