ParamCo

A founder of a professional services business needed some help in working out the steps required to start her business. We worked together to establish the best business structure for the enterprise, taking into account the risk-profile of the service and the potential for growth. ParamCo discussed the various structures available to her, guiding her on her options, including the pro’s and con’s for each structure. Once the corporate structure was agreed to, ParamCo drafted the necessary establishment documentation, including the Shareholder’s Agreement and the Director’s Services Agreement.

A recent start-up, who had achieved substantial growth, came to ParamCo for assistance with its foundation documentation. These included their customer terms as well as some of their business policies (including their Privacy Policy). This start-up had originally purchased these documents from one of the many service provides who offer template documentations of this kind. The founder realised through interactions with their customers, that these template documents did not adequately protect her business. ParamCo reviewed these documents and assisted in their customisation so that they more accurately reflected the services being offered and the processes being used by this enterprise. By doing so, this enterprise’s contractual documentation was better equipped to identify and manage potential legal and business risks.

An established not-for-profit enterprise engaged ParamCo to assist with some of its regulatory obligations. During that engagement, we discovered that the organisations record-keeping practices needed some help. ParamCo worked with the Company Secretary to identify their regulatory obligations, helped design the compliance regime and assisted with tidying up their records to ensure that they met their corporate regulatory obligations.

An established social enterprise was looking to set themselves up for sale. They had successfully gone through their proof-of-concept and can show that their business model was robust. Before they decided to make their sale aspirations known, they wanted to an experienced professional to cast a critical eye on their business operations. ParamCo looked at their business and identified the areas of priority that an investor would focus on. These included the certainty of their intellectual property, the cementing of particular business assets and personnel as well as gaps in their foundation documentation. ParamCo worked with the founders of this social enterprise to develop their asset protection strategy (including executing on their intellectual property protection strategy), redrafted a majority of their foundation documentation and established a robust system to ensure that they comply with the minimum standards of corporate governance.

The CEO of a multinational professional services firm didn’t have confidence that its’ in-house legal function was working effectively and efficiently to identify & manage legal risk in a timely and cost-effective manner. Whilst working with that company, the in-house legal function was transformed over 6 months into a cohesive, valued and effective service to support the company through process improvement, change culture drive and greater engagement. Achievements included:

• Demonstrated increase in proactive risk management within 6 months.
• Reduction in the insurance premium by $500K pa.
• Substantially decreased external legal spend from $1.5m pa to $450K pa.
• Substantially decreased the company’s litigation profile.
• Implemented a mentoring plan for the Head of Legal.
• Assisted with the people strategy for the in-house legal function.
• Drafted the short-term and medium-term strategy for the in-house legal function.

The CEO of a leading Australian-based financial services organisation was concerned that its complaint handling department was not operating effectively, given the regulatory environment and the growth in publicity of financial services complaints. ParamCo was engaged to review the current practices and processes in light of the regulatory environment (including all relevant external and internal stakeholder engagement) to produce best-practice process and policies to handle complaints in a proactive and strategic manner. Within 6 months, a complete audit of the complaints handling practice was conducted and the company was given:

• A fully integrated cradle-to-grave Complaints Handling Process and Practice Manual which complied with industry best-practice as well as Australian Standards on Complaints Handling and ASIC Regulatory Guidelines.
• A set of related company-wide Policies and uniform positioning on the various issues that underpin the complaints handling process.
• Initiated program workflows with the Program Director tasked with creating a more robust content management and reporting system for complaints handling.
• Direction on operational strategy to deal with the external stakeholders which form a fundamental part of the complaints handling infrastructure.
• Assistance with the strategy on dealing with high-profile and sensitive complaints. training to support the complaints handling function within the company to drive change culture.

A critical function within a large Australian commercial venture was having problems in securing a Department Head. The company looked at various avenues to fill that critical position but was unsuccessful for 8 months. During that time, the function was unguided and there was high staff turnover, resulting in critical processes being omitted. The company’s ASX listing made the risk of this critical function’s uncertainty problematic. ParamCo was hired to provide interim leadership to the function and:

• Reviewed the Department to identify and map out a short-term and medium-term people and operational strategy for the function.
• Mentored staff and put in place systems and processes (including escalation guidelines) to make the function more effective.
• Recommended a change to the recruitment strategy for the role.
• Redrafted the Job Description and managed the recruitment process, resulting in the successful hiring of the Department Head.
• Acted as the transitional leader to assist the new Department Head’s integration into the Department, the function and the role.

A multinational Australian-based financial services company was looking to outsource its business processes to reduce cost. Whilst working with that company on this project, the following successes were achieved:

• The outsourcing strategy was crystallised, involving the engagement of relevant internal stakeholders to lock down risk mitigation strategies, costing and practical roll-out initiatives.
• Assisted the project manager with the outsourcing project by participating in the Target due diligence, drafting the Master Outsourcing Agreement and conducting the Legal drafting and negotiations with the Target.
• Assisted the project manager with the people strategy for the outsourcing project, including advising on best-practice processes for staff restructures and role-rationalisation.

The Australian arm of a US-based multinational was looking to grow its Australian operations. The company did not have extensive experience in business acquisitions in Australia. Whilst working on that company’s growth strategy for Australia, the following successes were achieved:

• Assisted with the review and verification of potential acquisition business Targets, including operational, legal and business review.
• Assisted with negotiations with the eventual Targets on earn-out and EBITDA calculations, on profit share models and negotiations on the terms and conditions of the acquisition.
• Managed the acquisition process including conducting the due diligence on the Target companies, acting as Transitions Manager and co-ordinating the Legal negotiations.
• Interacting with Regional Executives and Global Executives to provide business justification for the acquisition, and to manage the acquisition price expectations.
• Drafting and finalising internal approval process documentation, including to Regional CEO and COO, Global Treasury & Finance and Global COO and CFO.
• Developed the people transition plan as part of the overall business transition and implemented the transition of staff from the Target businesses.
• Drafted the best-practice SOX compliance M&A process and practice which was adopted as the company’s Global standard.

Whilst working with a multinational professional services firm, the CEO identified that the CFO would benefit from executive championing, particularly in the area of corporate communication and board paper presentations. Working with the CFO we:

• Identified the areas of growth and developed a plan to manage these areas of growth.
• Worked with the CFO in understanding leadership skills particularly around understanding the art of effective communication and developing skills in corporate messaging.
• Reviewed corporate communications developed by the CFO and recommended changes based on the strategy in growth identified.

ParamCo was approached to assist with the review of the staff management strategy for a commercial enterprise. The company was in a rapid growth trajectory and its COO’s portfolio of responsibilities expanded. This included expanded functional direct reporting lines. ParamCo assisted the COO by:

• Reviewing the current business plan, people strategy and growth initiatives to map out a short-term and medium-term people and operational strategy for its executive staff.
• Redrafted the role descriptions and assisted with navigating the roll-out of the new executive staff people strategy, including advising on best-practice processes for staff restructures and role-rationalisation.
• Assisted with implementing performance management plans for under-performing staff.