Some finance presentations are about less than exciting issues - and sometimes they are about poor performance. How to give an motivating presentation when quarterly results have been poor.
2. Task at hand:
Prepare a motivating and well-designed presentation for the
Q3 Finance update for a medium sized consultancy – when
the results have been less than inspiring...
6. Economic downturn
• The economy has contracted
• Clients face funding constraints
• There is little money for our services
• The industry is suffering
• Our competitors are facing with cost
cuts and redundancies
7. Changing our services
• Our traditional services are not profitable
• We have introduced a new range of services
58%23%
10%
9%
Service profit contribution
Transformation Change
Project management Training
8. Client feedback is good
• Our clients are happy with our work
• We are ahead of competitors
• We are pursuing many new prospects
• We have launched new service lines
9.
10. How it could have been:
example of a motivating structure
and clean slide design
Welcome everybody to our Q3 update.3 months ago, when we looked at the forecast for this quarter, we knew it was not going to be easy. There was some rough terrain ahead and we could see that reaching our forecasts was not going to be a short sprint. We knew we are in for a marathon effort to make it over the line.Saying this, we are hugely encouraged by  the feedback we get from our existing clients
- across the board we are now in the top 2 preferred consultants sports for our clients.And in spite of the downturn economy, inquiries for our services have increased by 20% compared to last year. In fact, we are now in talks with clients who we have been chasing for the last 2 years!
Yes, revenues are down on previous quarters. And yes, we have revised our forecast for Q4 – we want to be prudent. But lets compare this to the market:
consultancy spend in the industry is down by 8% in the last 12 months and some of our competitors are doing even worse. We, however, are down by “just” 6%.And let’s put our performance into context:
The economy is in a downturn and our clients are affected by government spending cuts. Our traditional markets are struggling: no one has money for project management advice or training. Our clients are straining to make ends meet and we have to find innovative ways to help them. And that is what we are doing.What is more: we are a lean organisation. We don’t have to cover costly head offices or layers of bureaucracy.
Being lean means we can be nimble and adjust how we operate. And the services we offer. So while our competitors face upheaval and are focusing on cutting internal costs, we can concentrate on adapting our business to what the market needs.
We have long known that some of our services are more profitable than others, and we also know that some traditional services have limited shelf life. This is no different to other industries, where markets demands have changed- just look at what is happening in the Retail sector. Many generic shops are under threat, but specialists boutiques are doing well. And although our traditional markets are going through a period of great change and even chaos, your response to this uncertainty has made me proud. Insteadof bemoaning the change, we are playing to our strength as an agile specialists business. We have spend the last 3 months training our staff and developing toolkits to help our clients with their challenges. It takes great tenacity and courage to implement something new, particularly in a time of uncertainty – and we are doing it. Successfully!
Just look at the range of new quality services we can offer: We started 3 new, high value projects in the last 2 weeks and are poised to commence another 4, taking our utilisation of staff to 83%. Not many organisations can add this much value in such a short time.
So we are not just in the race – we are leading the pack!