Author: Darin Bifani
-
Using Risk-Sharing Deal Structures to Bridge Valuation Gaps
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Financial Management Key Article Point One of the most common reasons private investment transactions fail is surprisingly simple: the buyer and seller have different views about the future. The seller sees a business with significant growth potential and wants today’s valuation to reflect…
-
Scaling Case Study: Using Big Data to Build a More Resilient Business
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Entrepreneurship, Market Execution and Scaling Focus Area: Entrepreneurship and Scaling Key Issue Atlas Construction Services was a 120-person construction and infrastructure services company operating primarily in one region. The company had grown steadily through a combination of organic growth and occasional acquisitions. The construction SME market was highly fragmented. Thousands of…
-
Turn Big Data into a Deal Advantage: A Practical M&A Data Playbook for SMEs
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Entrepreneurship, Market Execution and Scaling Focus Area: Entrepreneurship and Scaling Key Article Point M&A generates enormous amounts of information: financial statements, customer data, market reports, competitor information, websites, contracts, regulatory filings, employee information, transaction histories, social media, industry statistics and thousands of documents in the data room. The problem for most…
-
Strategy Case Study: Turning Around a Business by Building a Living Business Plan
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Capital Raising Key Issue Northstar Components was a 90-person manufacturer of specialized components used by industrial equipment companies. For many years, the company had been successful. It had a strong engineering team, long-standing relationships with demanding customers, highly experienced production employees, and a…
-
Build a Living Business Plan: Six Steps from Vision to Daily Execution
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Strategy, Markets and Competitive Advantage Focus Area: Strategy and Business Models Key Article Point A business plan is often treated as a document that a company prepares when it needs financing, launches a new business or completes an annual planning exercise. That view dramatically understates its potential value. A strong business…
-
Capital Raising Case Study: Using a Commercial Triangle to Unlock Growth Capital
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Capital Raising Key Issue TerraHarvest Foods was a 120-person agricultural producer and processor supplying specialty food ingredients to food manufacturers and distributors. The company had developed a strong position in its domestic market and had identified a significant international growth opportunity. Several large…
-
Build a Capital-Raising Triangle: Turn Commercial Relationships into Investment Leverage
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Capital Raising Key Article Point Many businesses looking for growth capital make the same basic assumption: if their business plan is attractive enough, an investor will provide the money needed to execute it. In practice, this is often not how capital raising works.…
-
Financial Management Case Study: Using Brand Valuation as a Management Diagnostic
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Financial Management Key Issue Riverton Industrial Supply was a 75-person specialty distributor serving manufacturers across three countries. The company had been profitable for more than a decade. It had strong customer relationships, experienced employees, and a reputation for dependable service. Management generally thought…
-
Measure the Economic Power of Your Brand: What Is Your Company’s Brand Worth?
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Financial Management Key Article Point When selling a company, owners naturally focus on tangible assets, earnings, cash flow, customers, intellectual property and other identifiable sources of value. But there is another asset that can be extraordinarily important and extraordinarily difficult to value: the…
-
Risk Management Case Study: Capturing Value Through Cross-Border Risk Arbitrage
🧭 Dojo Compass Module: Entrepreneurship and Scaling; Finance, Risk Management and Long-Term Resilience Focus Area: Entrepreneurship and Scaling; Risk Management Key Issue Atlas International was a European industrial products company looking to expand its presence in Latin America. Management had identified an attractive acquisition target, Andina Industrial, a well-established manufacturer and distributor with operations in…