Business consulting

Understand how your brightest ideas meet a market need.

If you are considering venturing into new services or altering your established services, you’ll need to conduct market analysis to assure your leadership and board of the opportunity’s viability. CBB’s Business Consultants can gather and interpret market data to inform better decision making and also free you up to focus on your social objectives.

CBB’s Business Consultants are skilled in market analysis and apply considerable not for profit expertise to overlay the data with the unique attributes of your organisation. We conduct the following activities:

• Analyse your organisation’s current situation, identifying strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, and results (the SOAR model).
• Collate data on market size, trends, and customer segments to define potential client profiles and geographical characteristics.
• Identify and analyse your competitors to support the development of a strong market position.
• Evaluate the external political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal contexts of your sector to determine market requirements. We integrate this with market intelligence from years of experience working with not for profit providers of human services.
• Combine findings from the above activities into a comprehensive report with recommendations to inform your next steps.

To help your decision-makers fully understand the data, we facilitate workshops to better define the market context. We also discuss how you can apply the SOAR model to develop a strong point of difference.

Need support to realise a market opportunity? Get in touch, or book a free initial consultation with one of our CBB Business Consultants here:

Attract and retain high quality people with competitive salaries

The right salaries are hugely important for developing a strong workforce; a good remuneration package can mean the difference between securing and losing your ideal candidate. It is especially crucial for not for profits, because we rely on highly skilled employees to elevate our social impact and ensure the sustainability of our organisation.

Our Business Consultants conduct a comprehensive review of your organisational structure and position descriptions, while comparing these to available sector-specific data on:

• The general salary range for equivalent roles;
• The most common salary range for equivalent roles; and
• Expectations among members of the workforce on salary and benefits.

Using these findings, our not for profit specialists develop a report that provides your leadership team and board with an objective understanding of where your salaries sit relative to the market. Our insights build your team’s capability to plan future roles and also keep your organisation up to speed with the sector.

Did you know: we also offer cost-effective and personalised Salary Packaging services, which can make your remuneration even more attractive.

Get started on a Remuneration Review before your next hire.

As the adage goes: to fail to plan is to plan to fail

Strategic plans need to be revisited from time to time for several reasons. Perhaps the market has changed, or internal resources have changed; alternatively, maybe you have reached the end of your plan period and need to transition to a new one. CBB’s Business Consultants build your capacity to develop well-informed objectives that elevate your social impact and inspire your team.

Through a series of facilitated workshops with your key people, CBB’s Business Consultants establish what is important to your organisation and discuss how your strategic objectives relate to the sustainability of your organisation.

We then work with you to develop one or both of the following:

• A strategic plan that defines the strategies your organisation will employ to achieve its social objectives and identifies the outcomes that are to be met.
• A robust, up-to-date business plan that outlines your organisation’s unique model, attributes, objectives, and resourcing requirements; it can be used to secure funding, sponsorship, and partnerships.

Your team will learn how to undertake the same process, so that they are equipped to review and develop plans for years to come.

Start developing strategies and plans that will define your organisation’s impact well into the future.

Resonate with the right people

Not for profits can struggle to find the time and necessary expertise to develop marketing strategies and plans. CBB’s Business Consultants work with you to develop a robust marketing strategy and plan that will position your brand effectively and assist with the delivery of your social objectives.

We work alongside your team and build their capacity to research and diagnose the needs of your market. By defining your internal competencies, external competition and customer characteristics, we support the development of a well-informed, practical strategy that details the following:

• Brand – the image and personality that you will portray to reflect and strengthen your brand.
• Target segment(s) – the niche markets you want to engage customers from, and the problem you are solving for them.
• Positioning – how you want people to think and feel about your brand.
• Objectives – the measurable actions you want your marketing activities to have.

Once your strategy is in place, we work with you to create a plan that outlines rationale and desired activities within the four areas of the Marketing Mix:

• Service – the services you need to offer in order to meet the needs and wants of the people you serve.
• Price – value, price point, discounts, and comparison with similar products.
• Place – where people want to be able to purchase your service and potential distribution channels.
• Communications – how you will inform people that you can help them.

Our Business Consultants walk your key people through the process, equipping them with the knowledge to continue this work into the future.

Chat with one of our CBB Business Consultants about creating a strong marketing strategy and plan.

A business model for a model business

A strong business model is imperative for long-term sustainability, which in turn is critical for continuing the meaningful outcomes that your organisation creates. CBB’s consultants drill down into your business model, identifying areas for improvement and opportunities for growth within your different business segments.

A strong business model is essential if your organisation needs to harness market opportunities or tackle threats to viability. Additionally, it provides a means to gauge the sustainability and viability of individual segments within your organisation.

To support your team’s understanding of your existing business model, we conduct a comprehensive review of the financial and social impact drivers within each part of the organisation.

Using a Business Model Canvas, we visually map out key information for each business segment, helping to analyse and diagnose risks or issues, and leverage organisational strengths. We also analyse available data to identify revenue, expenses, and surplus, and resource utilisation.

To ensure we are providing professional development opportunities to your team, we bring them together in a facilitated workshop to review and understand your business model. They walk away equipped with established business modelling skills, so they can carry out this work for years to come.

Chat to a CBB Business Consultant about creating a stronger business model and upskilling your staff in this area.

Deliver on your mission, develop a strong value proposition and fulfil a market need.

Not for profits develop new services and programs to enhance sustainability and create different opportunities to serve the community. However, the development process is resource-intensive and requires lots of consultation and research; it may be a challenge to manage this on top of the organisation’s core business.

CBB’s Business Consultants can take the lead and guide you with our robust design process. The outcome is a stronger service or program that embodies your mission and solves problems for your target customers.

We also ensure your team are being upskilled through facilitated workshops that work through the following steps:

• Understand who your customers are, and the need that your service or program will fulfil.
• Clearly define the outcome that your service is trying to achieve, so you can stay true to your mission as the service or program evolves.
• Question the value proposition of your service. For example, does it solve a problem for your customer?
• Map out your service, reviewing each step and all resources involved.
• Co-design possible improvements or changes with the end-user and staff.
• How to continuously review and modify the service or program in accordance with feedback and changing needs.
• Make sure the business model can accommodate the new addition.

Our sector experience informs this process and ensures your organisation ends up with an evidence-based service or program. Better yet, this practical process equips your team with the skills to repeat this same process in the years to come.

Don’t just tick the box; excel at managing risks.

Risks in the workplace span from physical risks to reputational risks, and they can be costly if not properly mitigated. CBB’s Business Consultants can help you improve your approach to risk management, developing or streamlining your process to avoid damaging situations that can hurt your social impact.

To ensure your organisation is future-proof and operating responsibly, you need robust risk management systems. It’s so important for not for profits because they may be the only organisation that supports a specific group. If something happened and your organisation disappeared, your clients and communities would no longer have access to your services.

Looking internally, risk management is also important for long term sustainable organisational success, allowing us to mitigate risk and leverage opportunities to grow.

It’s important to remember that risk doesn’t start and finish with the WHS officer. It’s up to everyone – from board members to Customer Care – to know their roles and responsibilities.

To upskill your staff to better manage risks, our Business Consultants facilitate a Risk Register Workshop. Here, participants learn how to develop a Risk Register that allows staff to log risks and devise strategies to mitigate and even leverage them- and consider the risks associated with not acting. This workshop also includes a high-level training session on risk management, providing context on its importance.

Our consultants can also conduct a ‘risk health check’ by reviewing your existing risk documents and processes. We recommend changes that will streamline and align with best practice models and templates, ensuring they are scalable and tailored to your unique organisation. We can review:

• Board Risk Committee terms of reference
• Policies and procedures for risk
• Risk management framework
• Risk registers

Your people are your most valuable assets; invest in the culture of your workplace.

Not for profits rely on highly motivated, productive, and satisfied employees to achieve their social objectives. However, many organisations face challenges with staff recruitment or retention, keeping up with employment or management practices, or feeling that “something is not quite right” within the workplace culture.

Depending on your unique circumstances, CBB’s Business Consultants can work with you on an end-to-end people and culture framework or focus on key priority areas that have fallen behind. Either way, we aim to improve your approach and process for managing people and culture by providing:

• Review of organisational structure to ensure teams can function effectively.
• Workforce planning support to determine future resourcing requirements.
• Development and review of position descriptions to provide clarity and accountability around individual roles and responsibilities, and performance and behaviour expectations.
• Development and review of recruitment, selection, and onboarding processes to ensure your organisation is up to date on effective practices.
• Alignment of people management policy and procedures with organisational plans, strategies, and values.

You come away with a fit for purpose people management framework that blends seamlessly with not only your organisational strategy, growth objectives, and operational requirements – but also with your core purpose and values. Bringing these important factors into alignment can only create better cohesion and outcomes.

Take the first step towards a stronger people management approach and a more positive workplace culture.

Implement and respond to change without compromising staff wellbeing.

Change is inevitable and can assume many forms: growth or shrinkage, funding arrangements, mergers and acquisitions, new leadership, and even new policies. We saw unprecedented change in 2020 with the COVID-19 outbreak; it forced many organisations to adapt quickly or risk being left behind.

Regardless of the circumstance, CBB’s Business Consultants walk alongside your organisation to help you manage and transition through major change. Our outside perspective helps you consider the impacts of change on both people and systems without losing momentum or accountability.

A key challenge faced by organisations during periods of change is the risk to staff wellbeing and retention. We place high importance on helping you navigate the changes in a people-focused way by facilitating workshops and training for your staff. This development aims to ease their anxieties and also equip them for the changes, improving productivity through the transition.

Our Business Consultants tailor change management support to offset the unique challenges faced by your organisation, but generally we provide a combination of the following services:

• Change management planning support, identifying and planning for the activities and risks involved.
• Providing insight and guidance for new or current change management processes, systems, and tools that will improve your organisation’s approach.
• Implementing tracking and accountability systems to keep your team on track and motivated- including a coaching approach for leaders and managers to navigate roadblocks and celebrate successes.
• Planning for stakeholder engagement and communications activities that are closely linked to strategic change objectives.
• Facilitation of workshops and coaching with both internal and external stakeholders to ensure everyone is aware of change management processes.