Board members have a broad range of usefulness and value. Even good ones limit their time and attention to attending several meetings a year in person or by phone to chime in on key issues facing a company.
Most companies are well-served to have the benefit of additional experience present during these boardroom discussions. However most companies could benefit much more if board members would invest some additional time and effort behind helping the company accomplish some specific goals.
Our process typically involves projects that may take anywhere from three to twelve months to implement and then make them part of an advisory role with the company. For example it may be time to expand the company into a new geographic market. How should it be done? What will the costs be? What are the likely results and impact on the company? Other examples range from finding new capital for expansion, delineating company positioning and potential M&A partner, expanding business development to refining sales and marketing messages.
Being an active advisor means working on these objectives with company management and presenting results and next steps to the rest of the team and board of directors. Because we have an extensive network of experts across multiple areas of technology, market development, management and finance we can bring the right level of resources to the task only when required.
By adding actions and concrete plans to opinions and comments we feel we can provide a much more valuable resource to a busy CEO and board than by being just another voice to be heard.