Business Model Analysis and Development
AMEC’s experts believe that the business model innovations will become the key in the future. The starting point should be a well-founded analysis of the existing business model. However, this is often perceived as unnecessary – after all, you know your own business.

Analysis as a foundation for business model innovation
The basis of every successful business model innovation is the analysis of the existing business model. It makes little sense to work on and further develop a business model without carrying out an appropriate analysis of the actual situation beforehand. If you want to change the existing business model, you must consider the entire business model and understand its basic logic. An innovative product, a new type of technology, a different cost structure or a new sales model do not yet constitute a new business model. Similarly, an innovative earnings model does not yet represent a business model innovation.

Helicopter perspective provides a view of the whole picture
Helicopter perspective means looking at the business model of the entire company from a superior perspective. The individual areas are not analyzed down to the last detail, as is the case in a financial report or a production effectiveness report. Instead, all areas of the business model are presented in a clear and easy-to-understand manner using a suitable method.
One of the most popular methods for practical implementation is the Business Model Canvas (BMC). It allows the compact visualization of the nine basic areas of a company on just one page. Only through this integrative approach

• All areas of the company can be identified at a glance,
• The boundaries between the individual silos in a company dissolve,
• A comprehensive understanding of the main drivers of entrepreneurial activity is created,
• The interrelationships, cause-effect relationships and weak points of the company’s own business model become clear and understandable.

Observation on different flight altitudes possible
The analysis of the company’s own business model can be based on different flight altitudes, depending on the requirements – from a superficial view from high altitude to a more detailed analysis based on figures at a lower flight altitude.
The BMC can be filled in a few hours by a single person or worked out by several employees in a workshop. If more detailed information is needed, a research project can be carried out over a period of one week, in which each area is underpinned by concrete figures as following example:

• How much revenue is generated by the individual customer segments?
• How much revenue do the different channels generate?
• What are the costs of each channel?
• Which channels are the most profitable?
• What is the cost structure?
• How much does each key resource cost?
• Which key activities cause the highest costs?
• How much does each source of income contribute to total revenue?
• Etc.

The analysis of the business model can therefore take place at different levels of detail.

Concentration on essentials
Looking at it from a helicopter perspective, one always has an eye on what constitutes the business model. If our experts are working with the BMC, we focus on the essentials at every level of detail to understand the core, the real mechanism of the business model.

The BMC will shows which activities are not so important or even stand in the way of the goal. The critical aspects can be easily distinguished from minor or quickly solvable problems.
Instead of working on all areas, it is therefore usually enough to focus on those areas that have been identified as crucial for success in the case. Thus, one remains focused on relevant, essential factors and does not run the risk of getting caught up in detailed or implementation questions in group discussions.

We believe that If you want to develop a new business model, it is worth looking at the existing business model from a superior perspective. With methods such as the Business Model Canvas, business models can be clearly presented and further developed. At a glance, you can see where there are hidden potentials for improvement or weaknesses. At the same time, a common point of reference and a common language will be created, which enables a playful development of ideas and avoids protracted conversations and discussions.

Business Planning
Our experts believe that effective business planning can be the key to your success. A business plan can help you to secure finance, prioritize your efforts and evaluate opportunities.
It may initially seem like a lot of work; however, a well-prepared business plan can save you time and money in the long run.

Contend of your Business Plan
There are no rules about what your plan should cover or the level of detail. In general, plans need to include information as following:

• Business profile
• Vision, mission and goals
• Market research
• Operational strategy
• Products and/or services
• Marketing plan
• Financial strategy
• Etc.

AMEC’s experts helping you to identify the key issues before we are starting to develop together your business plan

Some questions are helpfully to be answered from you before we are joining your approach. Please consider the following key questions to help determine if you are ready to start writing your business plan.

• Have you thoroughly refined your business idea, so you have a good understanding of how your business will operate?
• Have you researched your business concept to determine if there is a need for it in the marketplace?
• Have you completed a feasibility study to determine expected level of success?
• Do you have the money required to start and grow the business?
• Are you prepared to invest significant time into the business to get it up and running?
• How often should we review our business plan?
• Business planning is an ongoing activity. Review plans regularly and update whenever your circumstances change.

All answers of our questions are available? Well done, lets getting in touch with our experts to develop and writing your business plan.

Contractual Support
Our Contractual Support or Contract Lifecycle Management is the management of contracts from vendors, partners, customers, or employees – and at its most basic, contract management software can be defined as an electronic version of a filling cabinet. It supports the entire customer and contract lifecycle which covers any process that contributes, creates or utilizes contract data.

Effective contract support requires an understanding of every step in the contract process, including any step that contributes, creates, or utilizes contract data

Today the business world is changing quickly. New ways of driving revenue are forcing companies to reimagine the way they manage the customer lifecycle — making contract support more important than ever before.

AMEC’s understanding of contract support means, “stuffing executed contracts into the overflowing filing cabinet, never to be referenced again.” On the other side of the spectrum, when contract support is handled correctly, contract support includes self-service portals, legal pre-approved templates, legal playbooks, and electronic signature. In this world, legal resources are free to manage by exception, and can focus attention on the critical, or non-standard, contracts that typically introduce risk into the organization. Our Stages of contract support:

• Request
  After the quoting process, business users express need to legal for a contract (ex. NDA, service agreement, standard licensing agreement). Contract “repository” – often a filing cabinet, computer desktop or shared server – is often disorganized, with no templates to create consistent contracts so outdated contracts are used as ad-hoc templates leading to potential financial and compliance risks.
• Generate
  Legal needs to get involved to create every single contract, whether it’s standard or specific; this is the stage where the bottleneck typically occurs.
• Negotiate
  Negotiations begin to occur to determine what terms and conditions are in the final contract.
• Approval
  Sales is pushing for contract terms to be approved, but depending on the size of the contract, it will need to be approved and signed by Legal, executives, stakeholders, all the internal teams and the customer.
• Execute
  Contracts are set into effect and often stored in filing cabinets where they are difficult to find and amend.
• Search/Report
  Contracts can’t be searched, and reports can’t be run because contracts aren’t easily located in the filing cabinet. If you do find it, all contract analysis is done manually with a potential for human error.
• Comply
  Are both parties holding up their ends of the agreement? It takes you some time and effort to figure this out because members of your staff need to review transactions manually against contracts to look for signs of noncompliance.
• Amend/Review
  Most contracts have end dates when parties need to decide to let the contract lapse, renew, or renegotiate. Often, these end dates will pass unnoticed, meaning countless dollars in revenue passed up.

Our experts help you in all stages of stage of challenges of contract support.
Manual contract support introduces bottlenecks into the sales cycle. Legal is often the department responsible for creating, managing and maintaining contracts within the enterprise. Unfortunately, when Legal must manage contracts manually, the contract process gets bottlenecked. This leads other departments, particularly sales. Manual contract support introduces (manual) errors. And a lot is riding on the Legal team if they don’t catch mistakes, such as:

• Non-compliance
• Revenue leakage
• Extended sales cycle times
• Jeopardized customer relationships
• Etc.

Contract support is no longer just about contracts – it’s also relevant to everything and everybody that touches contracts. Companies are now connecting the business cycle – quoting, contracting and revenue – into a seamless process where data and information can automatically and seamlessly feed into each other, so the appropriate parties have the most up-to-date and relevant information they need.

It is critical for your enterprise to establish a connected cycle – beginning with the quoting process all the way to revenue recognition – to enhance customer relationships and accurately identify and develop business best practices. When each step feeds directly and automatically into the next, the company can achieve the maximum amount of efficiency, accuracy, revenue velocity, and customer satisfaction.

Our experts help you with

• Legal playbooks, clause libraries, and templates ensure terms are accurate
• Redline with or without ‘Tracked Changes’ on to capture each change made to a contract
• Automate reviews and approvals to reduce contract cycle times while ensuring the appropriate pricing to handle large, last minute deals easily
• Contract manager receives real-time feedback whenever non-standard language or approvals are created
• A single source of truth – the contract repository – provides all relevant parties with the most up-to-date and necessary information

With an integrated front- and back-end system and a connected business cycle – from quoting to contracting to revenue management – the errors and associated risk from manual data entry become minimal.

Salesforce security establishes compliance and control with Salesforce’s proven data security credentials and built-in standards.

Marketing & Sales
Whether you require market analyses and forecasts, an economic cost-benefit analysis, an impact assessment (such as overcharge or damage calculations) or any other assistance with economic issues, our experts at Economics have the knowledge and expertise to give you optimal support. Our team comprises specialized economists who are skilled in developing targeted approaches and methods to answer your questions. We tailor our services to your individual needs, offering theoretical and empirical studies and expert opinions based on pragmatic approaches and scientifically recognized methods.
Only a sound analysis of markets and competitive conditions can turn a good business idea into a promising enterprise. AMEC’s experts help companies by examining and validating business plans, sales forecasts or plans for sourcing raw materials. They can assist companies to assess, and substantiate, the sustainability of business models, the capacity of planned projects and investments’ prospects of success.
Equity financing and debt financing are now almost impossible without comprehensive market and competition analyses. Banks, venture capital companies and other financiers require well-founded and reliable information on the market and competitive situation – as do public authorities, when companies seek to avail of state aid Programmes. Finally, it takes qualified market analysts to persuade internal boards, such as the shareholder committee.

AMEC’s experts assist companies with their market studies and competition analyses by

• forecasting future market opportunities
• validating the sales and revenue planning
• identifying plans for expanding into new markets
• verifying sales opportunities, for example following restructuring
• defining cashflow-based financing structures
• satisfying the information requirements of financiers such as banks, equity investors, and public aid Programmes.

To validate market opportunities, our various industry experts identify the relevant markets and their sales and export potential both at home and abroad. Among other things, they look at historical market developments, existing market structures, industrial sales expectations and future trends.

Based on this analysis, our specialists will prepare SWOT profiles to highlight strengths and weaknesses against the competition, take account of regulatory, geopolitical and general economic factors and test various events and situations as part of a comprehensive risk and sensitivity analysis. They will also pay attention to spill-over effects from and to other industries.

Financial Planning and Finance
In view of the volume of capital involved and the long-term capital tie-up, investment decisions represent numerous opportunities and risks for businesses. Rational financing concepts are called for to cover capital requirements in the long-term. Our experts assist companies with the choice of suitable lenders and evaluate their optional choices of action for investment projects.

Increasing competition for market shares and internal and external growth has led to financing becoming a deciding factor for the development of a company. Companies have become flexible in their financing not just from a tax point of view but also – and in particular – about innovative alternative forms of finance. The finance experts at AMEC advise companies comprehensively on strategic corporate financing and transaction, project and real estate funding, as well as financing during restructuring measures.

Structural changes among banks, changes in statutory supervisory conditions as well as an increasingly greater variety in the range of financial products make it necessary for companies to play an active role in the design of their financing structure, while at the same time purposely incorporating the expectations of the respecting financing partners. The object is guaranteed funding to suit requirements with a minimum of financing costs.

• Strategic corporate financing
  The basis for drawing up an individual financing concept is formed by the strategic alignment of the company. Activities planned on this basis must be transformed into a financing concept starting from the status quo. At the same time, the necessary flexibility and required degree of entrepreneurial freedom must be considered. The mix of equity and borrowed capital must be optimized with a choice of suitable instruments and partners regarding cost minimization, tax aspects and rating requirements. This is where advice is needed which is independent from individual financing products. AMEC’s experts assist its clients comprehensively all the way through to successful completion of financing.
• Project financing
  Investment requirements for major projects such as the construction of new power stations or recyclable energy plants represent significant challenges for energy supply companies. To meet the requirements for financing a project, sound financing structures and risk allocations, together with technical and economic feasibility, must be determined in a complex process.
• Financing for restructuring measures
  In a crisis, management and lenders require rapid and reliable information not just about the strategic and operative condition of a company but also about its financial status. Operative restructuring in this respect is aimed at improving the results of operations and securing the survival chances of a crisis company in the short term.
  AMEC develops and implements measures for a short-term release of liquid funds and to strengthen the liquidity situation of a company. In addition, our experts advise on financial restructuring measures including discussions with lenders and suppliers.
• Transaction financing
  A transaction would be an advantage for the development of a company but there is a shortage of capital? Our finance experts are independent of banks and products. They assist companies with the choice of suitable lenders and develop a finance concept based on integrated planning.

Start-up Coaching
AMEC’s experts are focusing on medium sized businesses that are planning for future development or Spin-Off separation. The range of your services includes support of critical business decisions and transition to new levels of success. Our experts work with our customers to develop business plans that make sense relative to their market opportunities and competition.
We help customers identify options to expand their revenues through strategies designed to increase sales or identify acquisition opportunities, support them in positioning their businesses for longer-term acquisition.
As more the increasing business complexity due to growth, our experts help to deal with or the supervise the keys for a turnaround.