Financial reports show when earnings shortfalls have occurred, but deficits can often be identified well in advance during the planning phase. This phase offers a good starting point for fundamental restructuring because this is when the company's cost and revenue structure is subject to intense scrutiny. Based on these insights, ideas for corrective measures should be collected. There should be no taboos: this is the time to identify as many cost and revenue levers as possible. Afterwards the levers can be assessed and prioritised – e.g. based on their earning effects or strategic fit.
Once the restructuring decision has been made, the project architecture is designed. The following success factors have proved to be important:
The project should be designed in alignment with these success factors. In the first phase, the activities have to be defined in detail and scheduled in a way that creates transparency about forthcoming steps and their expected impact. In the subsequent implementation phase, the detailed plan is used for monitoring and to identify any required adjustments.
CTcon's approach differs from that of the “classical”, hard restructuring consultants. Bottom-up and top-down go hand in hand: