Want To Scale Up Your Business? Don’t Just Work Hard, Work Smart.
Britain is a nation of start-up businesses. In 2017 nearly 660,000 companies were established making the UK second only to the USA for number of start-ups. However, when you look at the number of those businesses that are still running, let alone thriving, in 2019 and you’re looking at a much smaller number. A staggering 80% of new businesses fail within the first 18 months. That means of that 660,000 that launched in 2017 only around 132,000 will still be in operation.
It’s a sad fact.
Scaling up your business requires a different skill set to launching it and yet there is little support out there to help businesses flourish and grow. The plain truth is that the skills and experience you need to bring in to help you build your business and take it to the next level are probably out of your price range.
The Smart Team was born out of this quandary. Highly experienced senior financial professionals providing flexible support to scale up businesses across Oxfordshire. Your business gets the support, advice and services it needs without the hefty costs of employing a full time Finance Director or Finance Manager.
The Smart Team reflects the changing world for emerging businesses. Traditional management and finance structures simply don’t meet the flexibility and agility that new and scale up businesses need in order to grow and thrive in fiercely competitive world markets.
We’ve built a new way of offering financial management services to businesses, just like yours, who are looking to grow. Our ethos is driven by the firm belief that people are the key driver of success: build a capable team with strong leadership and success will follow. But that is not always possible in the early stages of business and so The Smart Team exists to provide a flexible service to help scale up businesses achieve their growth goals.Our vision is two-fold:
- Firstly, we want to be the catalyst that allows emerging and scale up businesses to grow by providing flexible finance services that gives a business what it needs, when it needs it without paying for what it doesn’t need or want.
- Secondly, we want to create flexible and rewarding opportunities for talented and experienced financial professionals.
It’s pretty simple really. You need expert financial leadership and management to help you look to the future and grow your business sustainably and we are building a team of financial professionals who really know their stuff and want to work flexibly. Put the two together and bingo you have The Smart Team on board!
Now this might sound controversial but we don’t want to work FOR you. Our approach is to embed seamlessly into your leadership team to drive value from the finance function, working ‘with you’ rather than simply ‘for you’. That means you get the highest quality of advice and support. We are not simply going to say ‘yes’ and do without question. As part of your team we want your business to succeed and so we will actively challenge, question and act as a critical friend, always with the best interests of the business at heart.
Our services are bespoke to ensure you get what you really need but based around 4 key areas:
- Financial Leadership
Your personal FD delivers value added strategic focus by working with the leadership team to improve profits, inform decision making and manage risk. The Smart Team provides empowering leadership to create a high performing financial team for a scale up business.
- Finance Management & Reporting
Drawing on our network of talented, skilled financial professionals we build the finance team that will best meet your requirements to ensure financial control and compliance and provide clarity on cashflow and focus on adding value. Concise fact based reports allow for better, more informed decision making and increase knowledge and understanding of what drives profit in your business and the critical success factors to achieve great profitability.
- Bookkeeping & Compliance
We create slick, smart and streamlined processes using Cloud technology to ensure hassle free finance processing so you can focus on leading and driving your business to success. Designed specifically for your requirements, you only pay for what you need.
- Non-Executive Directorship
A Smart Team Non-Executive Director (NED) brings an independent perspective to decision making within your business. As a seamless part of your team they will challenge, question & monitor the senior management. Acting as a “critical friend” they will act in the interests of the company’s stakeholders and can take responsibility on board sub-committees.
With our safe pair of hands your time is freed up to concentrate on building the business whilst we add value with a strategic finance focus that improves profitability. With our support you will gain a better understanding of the critical success factors, profit drivers and KPI’s that will lead to better informed decision making.
We work with businesses across Oxfordshire and the surrounding area to provide high performing, cost effective finance teams who are genuinely part of your business.
Why not get in touch for an initial chat about how we might be able to help?
