The Blue Sea Advisors Network

Our Network of Expert M&A Advisors

Fortune 500 level experience
for the Middle Market

Focus on Your Weakest Links


Business Longevity & Legacy Planning starts by crystallizing the goals, objectives, and timelines of the Company’s ownership. With these foundational drivers, we can help you craft a clear vision, mission, and set of guiding principles for your organization. A necessary condition for any business pursuing its mission is to make more money, now and in the future. What stops you from achieving that now? Your Constraint.

An organization is like a chain of dependencies, with one weakest link. To move the business toward its goal, the first step is to identify where the system constraint is. Using our proprietary Diagnostic Check-Up tools, we will rapidly narrow down the functional areas of your business that require your focus, drill down into identifying your system’s constraint, and solve the temporary bottlenecks that slow the flow of orders to customers on-time. We assess your top critical resources for resiliency and responsiveness as these will determine how much you can increase your throughput.

If your internal team lacks the immediate know-how and capability to elevate the flow rate through your constraint or protect your future throughput, we can provide rapid access to pre-vetted professionals and business advisory experts to get the job done. We can turn wasted costs and tax incentives into valuable strategies that will make your organization less fragile and more resilient to various risk scenarios. We can help you innovate your way around a constraint and assess the priority projects that yield the highest profit and return on investment. Have a look at our Network’s functional capabilities…

Improve Your Performance

Which key functional area is your weakest link? We find it, focus our best resources on it, and accelerate progress toward your goal.
Double click the icons below to learn more.

M&A / Transition Planning

Marketing

Sales Management

Operations

Finance

Human Resources

Teamwork

Risk Mitigation

Tax Incentives

Cost Reduction

M&A Transition Planning

This is always the place to start. You need a clear goal for your business and your personal life. You need a firm timeline for your objectives. Without these, you don’t where to start, what to improve, or make any decision in context. It’s all about asking yourself the right questions and deciding where to focus your limited time and resources.

Marketing

In most B2B companies, marketing is often limited to a website. Yet attracting potential clients to your organization is probably the highest value activity you could engage in. Most constraints to further growth and profitability lead right back to the Marketing Policy of the Company.

Sales Management

Without an effective process for converting leads to prospects to customers, all your marketing expenses will be wasted, as will all of your operational improvements. A good sales management process combined with the right reward systems and right sales force is the engine that will drive your B2B company forward.

Operations

Unidentified constraints within your operations can result in disappointing customer expectations caused by extended lead times, incomplete deliveries, quality defects, or wasted time in trying to get status reports on their orders. Since B2B companies only buy products and services they NEED, as part of THEIR process for delivering value to their clients, your company’s non-performance will not be tolerated for very long, and will tarnish your brand and business reputation.

Finance

Attracting and retaining financing for your company is foundational for growth and success. Once the credit spigot gets turned off, cash can get very tight. Like a room without oxygen, a looming cash constraint can represent an existential risk. Having alternative sources of capital at the ready in times of high growth or sudden crises is your oxygen supply.

Human Resources

You must attract and retain the right people for your organization. If you do, they will become your greatest asset. If you don’t, the lack of the right talent will become your key constraint.

Teamwork

Having the right people in your organization is necessary but not sufficient. They must work together across departmental functions as a team in order for your organization to satisfy its customers. Alignment and engagement is critical for effective teamwork.

Risk Mitigation

Often ignored by business owners, risk mitigation will determine your business’s longevity in the end. In a world of accelerating change, risk mitigation includes having a structured process for innovation to meet the future needs and wants of your customers, as well as insuring against the death or disability of key owners or team members, retaining key employees through ownership transitions, revising contractual terms and conditions with customers and suppliers, and addressing gaps or insufficiencies in your cyber-risk, directors and officers liability policies, and umbrella coverages.

Tax Incentives

Smaller to mid-size businesses have not been taking advantage of all the R&D tax credits they are entitled to. Many businesses ignore the increased cash flow they could obtain with proper cost segregation of their real estate improvements. Others fail to take advantage of a host of other energy, employment-related, property tax abatement, and HR benefit programs that could reduce their out of pocket tax burdens. In today’s competitive world, no justifiable tax incentive should be unexplored.

Cost Reduction

Many business owners are walking over diamonds sitting on their plant floors. Through inattention or lack of good auditing practices, they get overcharged by vendors, fail to take advantage of lower-cost alternatives, and completely overlook some areas that could save them money year in and year out. Why not convert those wasted expenses into a fortress of protection for your company and your family—for only a couple of hours of your purchasing department personnel’s time?