References

Sundström Restaurants is a cluster of businesses that includes two Obelix restaurants, the lunch restaurant Kaapelin Kanttiini, and Chef X, which produces ready meals for stores. The owner of Sundström Restaurants, Marco Sundström, is a veteran in the food industry with thirty years of experience and is a multi-talented professional in his field.

In 2022, Sundström reflected on the future direction of his business. He was considering various options, debating whether to expand the business, or to focus on profitability and start preparing an exit strategy. As part of these future considerations and developmental activities, Sundström Restaurants initiated a Clarity partnership with Aamu Partners.

The owner’s strategy becomes clear, and the exit strategy begins

The Clarity partnership is based on the Clarity method developed and tested by Aamu Partners, and the partnerships initiated on the basis of the method are always customized to suit the customer. The Clarity partnership is a systematic model for increasing the owner value of SMEs. However, at the beginning of the collaboration, the future aspirations of the owners are always sketched out, as they dictate how the company’s value will be developed moving forward.
At the start of the collaboration, discussions were held, contemplating various retirement and exit possibilities for the owner-entrepreneur, which helped to clarify Sundström Restaurants’ future plans.

“It was really beneficial to go through the future of the business step by step and consider the different options available to me as an owner. It was also important to have an experienced expert team to reflect on my own thoughts.” – Marco Sundström

When the owner-entrepreneur knows what they want, the business can be developed towards the desired goal. It’s important that especially the larger goals are very clear in the owner’s mind. The path to selling a business or business operation is quite different from if the aim is to develop the business into a dividend machine and live as a retired owner, disconnected from the operation.

Reducing Personal Dependency

Regardless of the chosen exit path, reducing personal dependency is an important part of the exit strategy. Whether the aim is a high-price share sale or building a dividend machine and operational exit, the entrepreneur will exit the operation at some point. Therefore, the exit strategy must include a concrete plan for reducing personal dependency.
A significant part of Sundström Restaurants’ Clarity partnership involves monthly meetings with branch managers. In these meetings, the operation of the specific branch is actively monitored and developed, but they also serve as “management and business training” for operational key personnel. With the experience brought by the Clarity partnership, restaurant managers can take on increasingly larger roles in the operation, thereby reducing the organization’s dependence on the owner-entrepreneur.

“I didn’t just buy the Clarity partnership for business development and coaching, but also to enable the managers to play a larger and more independent role in the future.” – Marco Sundström

During the Clarity partnership, best practices in restaurant operations were documented as processes and implemented by the employees. For example, an upselling process was developed for each branch, and a bonus model was introduced for employees to encourage engagement with the process. When operations are structured and documented as processes, and taught to employees, the owner-entrepreneur doesn’t need to be constantly involved in the operation, allowing everything to gradually roll on its own.

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“Even if one is a long-standing professional in their field, it can be challenging to transfer one’s own expertise as part of the organization’s operations and the knowledge and skills of subordinates. The systematic approach and structure provided by the Clarity partnership have significantly facilitated this process.” – Marco Sundström

Concreteness, Not Just Waving Hands

The Clarity partnership differs from other consulting services in its concreteness and continuity. The partnership is also more comprehensive than consulting and enables the increase in value of SMEs, not just focusing on individual projects or needs.
The Clarity partnership can support Sundström through everything from clarifying the owner strategy to possible corporate arrangements, during them, and even after them as support for the new owner. This continuity can also be used as a selling point when negotiating the terms of the corporate arrangement process.

The Clarity partnership is not traditional consulting, but long-term cooperation. In the Clarity partnership, we don’t just ponder over high-level corporate matters, but think about what needs to be done concretely in operational activities to increase the company’s owner value. For example, measures related to increasing revenues and reducing costs were quickly brought to a practical level.

“I haven’t been interested in consultant servicees before. My impression has been that suit men come in, wave their hands, and give presentations without concrete results. With Aamu Partners, we quickly got down to practical matters and the results are already clearly visible.” -Marco Sundström

The development of sales was facilitated, for example, by listing various ways to do cross-marketing between different branches and determining who could implement the marketing. Pricing was also able to be examined with the right numbers and more detailed analyses. The partnership has also included more general financial coaching, for example, for restaurant managers.

In cost-cutting as well, a very concrete level was achieved. When examining expenses, for instance, the high significance of waste in overall profitability was noted, so this issue was addressed robustly. Aamu helped to develop concrete solutions for reducing waste, starting from how lunch food lines should be organized to developing storage management and logistics processes. As part of the development work, a digital spreadsheet tool was developed for Sundström Restaurants, which allows for the optimization of stock and raw material quantities, as well as the production and transportation of ready meals.

In Summary

The Clarity partnership was tailored for Sundström Restaurants to enable the owner’s future aspirations. The main focuses of the partnership have been improving profitability, reducing personal dependency, and making the CEO’s work easier and more efficient.