Home Loan Experts

The founder of the business was the CEO and heavily involved in day-to-day business operations

Strategic Specialists Group led a Discovery Roadmap on Home Loan Experts two core business streams. The analysis identified underperformance in one division and high growth potential in another. The underperforming division operated in Australia and high brand awareness in the highly competitive market of mortgage broking for residential home buyers was not converting to customer sales. A separate division delivering white labelled mortgage broking service in the Australian market through an internationally outsourced team in Nepal was generating high customer sales.

A problem for the business owner was to understand if the business could handle expansion of both divisions, which would each require financial resources to stabilise, leverage and grow.

A CFO to lead a financial Discovery Roadmap to ensure delivery of two strategies simultaneously

The CFO led the financial Discovery Roadmap over six days. Working with the leadership team the CFO identified key strategic priorities to achieve objectives for both divisions. Delivery of the “Top 5 Recommendations” to drive performance provided a framework to align key priorities with business growth objectives. The framework guided the leadership team’s decision-making on the key short-term priorities and alignment of everyone in the business with the strategic objectives as well as personal and team performance goals and deliverables.

Key results for the business included:

• Automation of key processes previously handled manually through spreadsheet tracking
• Design and delivery of monitoring systems on financial levers driving financial performance
• Design and delivery of a monthly Board report with accurate, transparent, and timely financial data
  including sales, revenue, cashflow, customer value (CLV), financial position and profitability
• Capabilities analysis: initial analysis of the team led to implementation of an audit of tasks and delivery times for a gap analysis and development opportunity recommendation
• Training and development: leveraged the existing ERP system to provide training for offshore teams aligned with the people and culture strategy and service delivery across the domestic and international markets; introduced best practice procedures to enable a competitively differentiated service offering into the Australian market

As financial management systems improved business knowledge, integration with other disciplines, such as marketing and sales, were more easily aligned with business goals. Budgets, forecasts, people, operations, marketing, and sales now had clear identifiable links and KPIs to achieve business goals