What We Do – Vention Partners

WHAT WE DO

We work on a long-term retained basis with CEOs, executive teams and boards to accelerate growth and value

Growth Vectoring

Evolve business dynamically to address market developments and maximize growth opportunities, replacing long-term strategic planning with systems that continuously refine business plans, rebalance investments, and reprioritize execution objectives

Achieving 60% Annual GrowthIgniting Growth in Disrupted Markets

Company	SaaS company aspiring to achieve 60% year-on-year revenue growth, needing to define plan and capital requirements to secure additional funding
Challenge	Evolve strategy to prioritize growth initiatives from nearly 100 competing opportunities, determining relative investment, timing and interdependencies for each
Actions	Created executive leadership collaboration model to streamline planning, operations, and performance management Identified market segments with highest growth potential, evolving operating model to go after them successfully Defined, prioritized and launched internal growth initiatives integrated with solution lifecycle roadmaps Supported hiring and onboarding of new executives to lead ongoing transformation effort
Results	Secured next funding round based on updated, board-validated strategy, operational plan, financial forecasts, and capital requirements

Company	Mobile radio manufacturer facing slow growth in traditional markets
Challenge	Lacked shared vision and clear strategy for how company would evolve to take advantage of disruptive trends in mobile radio industry
Actions	Assessed nature, magnitude and timing of disruptive threats and opportunities impacting core business Identified opportunities to leverage company’s existing technologies, relationships and other capabilities to address emerging market opportunities Developed offering portfolio strategy to maximize profit from legacy products while redirecting investment toward promising new products and services
Results	Freed up cash to invest in prioritized growth portfolio of products and services in rapidly growing LTE-enabled Internet of Things ecosystem

Lean Launches

Plan and execute new growth initiatives quickly with controlled risk by bringing together complementary teams with subject matter, business model design, and rapid build-measure-learn experience

Jumpstarting New BusinessAdjusting Course to Reflect New Learnings

Company	Co-Founders and investors of healthcare industry roll-up
Challenge	Jump-start planning and execution of new, funded venture in advance of onboarding full executive team
Actions	Translated Founders’ vision into compelling strategic and operational plan used to facilitate negotiation discussions with private equity investors Worked as Tiger Team to create detailed business strategy, operating model, financial projections and execution plans Jumped in as interim executives to kickstart strategic planning, marketing, acquisitions, integration, platform development, and other functional areas
Results	Accelerated roll-up startup with significant funding commitment from private equity partner

Company	CFO, CTO and engineering leadership of warehouse automation company
Challenge	Clarify market viability of second-generation warehouse automation system, establishing operational plan to accelerate new offering launch
Actions	Analyzed and refined product prototype costs, developing product pricing and profitability assessment identifying critical feature, cost and value tradeoffs Launched targeted cost reengineering efforts to double gross margins from 20-40%+ Redefined customer targeting, value proposition and pricing plans Updated strategic, operational and financial three-year growth plans
Results	Reduced risk due to substantially clarified product economics and redefined go-to-market strategy

Financial Physics

Master underlying drivers of profit in order to evolve plans, investments, budgets and dashboards to maximize revenue and profit growth

Clarifying Product ProfitabilityDeveloping Vertical Profitability Models

Company	$150M technology hardware, software, and services business facing slow growth and eroding margins
Challenge	Leadership team did not have clear view of underlying profitability drivers needed to make optimal investment and portfolio management decisions
Actions	Worked with finance, engineering, manufacturing, services and support teams to determine costs and resource requirements on regional and product-by-product basis
Results	Revealed new understanding of true, fully-costed gross margins, cost reduction opportunities and investment requirements need to accelerated growth of next-generation product lines

Company	SaaS business building market share in multiple vertical industries, each at different maturity level
Challenge	Legacy corporate P&L and accounting practices prevented leadership team and board from understanding cash requirements to fund and achieve profitable scale in each vertical
Actions	Reconfigured P&L to create new vertical industry-based views of business Developed new vertical industry-based strategy, reprioritizing growth opportunities by vertical Partnered with CFO, at board’s request, to recreate current and forecasted P&Ls
Results	Exposed hidden profitability drivers, including identification of areas of accelerated growth, overspending, underinvestment, and stagnation

Champion Teams

Foster leadership environment where executives and board members operate at peak performance, share consistent, system-wide views of the business, challenge legacy thinking, and collaborate closely to achieve the previously unimaginable

Aligning Functional LeadershipEstablishing Growth Mindset

Company	Emerging industrial robotics company at point of commercializing major new solution
Challenge	Ad hoc communications, lack of transparency and misaligned or hidden agendas limited effectiveness of board and leadership team to achieve ambitious product launch plans
Actions	Provided one-on-one coaching to increase trust and alignment amongst executive team and board members Analyzed engineering and product costs and market pricing to highlight major disconnects between engineering and marketing and create a common rallying point for refining product performance and cost parameters Developed transparent objectives, mapped interdependencies, and created multifunctional task teams, resulting in improved organizational alignment
Results	Aligned the executive team and board on refinements required to successfully launch new offering, facilitated cross-functional teams to collaborate on execution plans to shift funds toward cost-reengineering and new product cost/performance objectives

Company	C-level executive team of a global technology products and services provider struggling to define and align on a plan to grow in a highly dynamic market environment
Challenge	New CEO needed to rally his highly siloed and varied-tenure management team around a new strategy and operational plan to reverse shrinking revenues and build new growth engines for the business
Actions	Operated as COO team, using the rational/political/emotional engagement model to encourage transparency and cooperation Aligned leadership team and board on investments and operational changes required to pursue new growth opportunities
Results	Radically altered legacy individual and organizational behaviors, enabling leadership team to deliver credible, executable plan to board