'Building Businesses through commitment'

At Houghton Stone we have specialist departments that at various stages of the business cycle groom the business for its ultimate goal.

If we break the business life cycle down into four areas covering:

• Start up
  
  
• Growth
  
  
• Maturity
  
  
• Exit

Throughout all these cycles the business requires various specialist advice to help it through that stage.

Throughout all these stages Houghton Stone has a dedicated team that can steer you in your business through each cycle.

From the above examples we can see that

1, Executive coaching
This is an on going process that needs to be regularly reviewed to ensure that the management team understands its role and how they change over time.

2, Business Planning
Nobody plans to fail they fail to plan! It is essential that right from the beginning a company have a plan. This is a vital source document and should be regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in the business model.

3, Taxation Planning
Act now before it's too late! Once we have a working business plan, now is the time to develop the taxation strategy. This is by far the cheapest time to implement the plan, further down the line it could be too costly to look at the opportunities available.

4, Management accounting
Reliable, accurate and timely advice is the lifeblood of any business. We cannot make good quality decisions without good quality infrastructure.

5, Cashflow Forecasting
We need to be able to predict ahead the effects of our actions now and managing cashflow is the most vital of all business decisions.

6, Business Systems
As the business grows it should be looking not only at the systems it will require now, but those that will be needed in five to ten year's time. Again these need constantly reviewing as the business changes and develops, without this, 4 and 5 above become very hard.

7, Audit
This is the stamp of approval to the outside world. We wish the business to grow and become established and recognised for its quality. Then the audit and accounts presentation to the outside world has to be of the highest quality.

8, Recruitment
At the same stage the company will look to recruit in house experts to take over the roles of outsource suppliers.

9, Strategic review
Having reached a certain size/maturity it is time to think about the way forward, does the company sell/ float transfer to the next generation.

10, Tax strategy review
The tax review is an ongoing process, but at this point it needs to be ensured that the strategies implemented are still fit for purpose.

11, Strategy implementation
The culmination of points 8 to 10.