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Due Diligence/Mergers and Acquisitions
The Lucas Group has completed more than 400 engagements with private equity investors to conduct due diligence on potential investments and acquisition candidates. We’ve analyzed companies of all sizes in a wide variety of industries.
We can tailor our due diligence approach to the unique needs of a situation. Services include market assessment, customer research and interviews, competitive analysis, as well as operations and financial review. We prefer to do the primary research ourselves, rather than outsourcing, and we conduct extensive secondary research to validate our findings.
Our analysis aims to identify business risks and other red flags early in the process, while also helping the investor assess growth and improvement opportunities that will create additional value.
Growth Strategy
The essence of strategy is defining the sweet spot of a business – the space where aggressive investment of resources and talent can drive profitable growth. That also requires understanding which opportunities don’t fit the chosen strategy and should be rejected. Executives need solid data and insights to inform such decisions, combined with the resolve to keep targeting the sweet spot and rejecting dilutive or distracting ventures.
We aim to develop strategies that are both innovative and practical. We base each strategy on rigorous data gathering, research, and analysis. And we develop the strategy in a collaborative style with the client’s internal team.
Customer Research/Customer Engagement
The Lucas Group performs most primary research ourselves, rather than outsourcing it, because we’re dedicated to producing the highest-quality, most reliable research available. We have extensive experience in complex analytics and in net promoter score research.
Our research helps to identify specific paths to raising the odds of success for high-priority initiatives. For instance, net promoter score research can reveal surprises in customer priorities, perceptions, and areas of strength and weakness for a brand or a company. We use customer survey analysis to produce insights that then can inform tactics to enhance financial performance and customer satisfaction. And we can develop ongoing customer feedback processes to improve operations and engage customers more closely.
Portfolio Strategy
To optimize the corporate portfolio, we assess both core and non-core operations of the portfolio components. Rigorous customer research, combined with market intelligence, can be analyzed to characterize the relative competitive position of each component. Then we produce a plan for further value creation and greater operational effectiveness.
Our plans are not just thorough but also pragmatic, taking into account the many possible competitive scenarios, barriers to implementation, and implications for the organization and its culture.
Acquisition Integration
Many of our private equity clients and their portfolio companies grow via additional acquisitions to the original company platform. In order to capture the full potential value of an acquisition, the integration process should be carefully planned and quickly implemented. It should achieve marketplace synergies, reduce costs, and provide a smooth integration of the management teams.
The Lucas Group has long experience with integration efforts, often starting with the development of a thorough integration plan that’s ready on Day 1 of the acquisition and can be implemented during the critical first 90 days. We can help companies prepare for the challenges ahead as well as navigate the integration process itself.
Strategic Sourcing
The Lucas Group helps clients achieve major savings in their purchases of goods and services – a total of roughly $500 million saved since 1994 - across more than 200 categories of spend. On average, our teams achieve savings of 15-20 percent of an organization’s total spend.
Our approach is data-rich and highly analytic, identifying which categories hold the most potential for improvement, then reaping those opportunities through vendor consolidation, negotiation, creative vendor partnerships, consumption management, substitution, and technology solutions.
We work side by side with clients throughout the process, all the way to realizing savings and, if they wish, to ongoing measurement of improvements. We are willing to take on some form of performance-based compensation, which aligns incentives for both parties.
Productivity Improvement
We understand the need for pragmatic approaches to increase the value of an enterprise, often in an accelerated timeframe. We bring data-driven, rigorous analysis, including competitor intelligence, to the most important strategic and operational issues facing the company.
We are well versed in working with senior executives to reinvigorate employees and promote change and innovation. And rather than a one-time effort, this can be sustained over time, by tracking relevant metrics such as sales force performance, worker efficiency, or purchasing effectiveness.
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