Strategic Management Advisory

Defining and Realizing Strategic Goals

Financial services are in the midst of a paradigm shift. Managers of traditional banks and microfinance institutions as well as new market entrants such as mobile network operators, pay-as-you-go solar lease companies, digital financial service providers (FinTechs) and others face complex challenges and new opportunities. Intensifying competition, digitization, regulatory compliance and customer retention are all increasingly important features of the financial services market. To ensure sustainable growth, financial service providers need to continuously innovate. Two pillars to lay the foundation for the long-term success of any financial institution include attracting talented staff and strategic management decisions by top management.

Today, strategy development is as important as ever. With its Strategic Management Advisory Services, Frankfurt School offers direct support to face these challenges and turn them into competitive strength. Our range of services extends far beyond classic consulting. With decades of executive management experience in challenging and changing environments, Frankfurt School’s advisors are ready to actively lead and support decision-making processes including strategic management changes, if necessary.

Moreover, Frankfurt School supports investors such as multinational financial institutions or impact investment funds in their investment decisions by undertaking comprehensive due diligence or benchmarking studies.

Management Services

Do you need to bridge succession gaps or require support to identify or train new managers? Beyond shadowing management prospects, you may need highly experienced staff to take over management and decision-making functions for a limited time. With a wide pool of senior managers with decades of practical experience in all relevant areas of financial service provision, we support your institution with interim management services to ensure consistent, uninterrupted strategic leadership in critical times.

Restructuring / Turnaround Management

Strategic Management Advisory experts support you in mastering challenging situations and crisis scenarios of all kinds. Our turnaround management practitioners have vast competencies in developing and implementing restructuring plans to swiftly execute lasting changes to your business model. Our support is based on an in-depth institutional analysis to identify crisis roots, followed by the development and implementation of a tailored turnaround plan. That may involve dedicated measures to restore an adequate credit risk position, cut operational expenses, or to identify and execute quick gains – always with a focus on the short-term ability to act and the medium-term operational ability for the future. We encourage experienced executive managers to take on interim roles in critical environments and to strengthen affected functional areas with the objective to overcome any distressed situation.

Strategic Advisory & Business Development

Achieving profitable and sustainable growth without compromising your social mission is a core principle for us. We help to define business goals, analyse business processes, research existing and potential markets and create solutions to leverage unused potential.

We cover a broad range of business adaptation and transformation goals, such as driving digitization, opening new markets, refining existing products and service catalogues, or developing successful marketing and customer retention strategies. We differentiate our services through a holistic conceptual approach, which focuses on the full procedural and cultural change within your institution to unleash long-term success.

Investment Advisory & Due Diligence

There is increasing competition for capital support in the financial industry. Investment decisions not only focus on profitability and liquidity but also integrate non-financial measures like Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG). No matter if you represent an international donor institution, an impact investment fund, or a potential beneficiary of external funding, we offer comprehensive investment due diligence services. Our services cover all relevant aspects, including financial soundness and portfolio quality, ESG as well as impact assessment. Our due diligence expert team will conduct an in-depth analysis of the investment target, benchmark against relevant peers, identify strengths and opportunities as well as improvement areas to attract external financial support at scale.

Executive Management Coaching

Your staff is the most important resource for the success of your company. Our skilled practitioners provide long-term support in staff development with a particular focus on high potentials and senior management. Building on the concept of life-long learning we support you with dedicated and tailored technical as well as leadership trainings. Our services include long-term one-on-one shadow management with onsite as well as offsite components in all relevant areas.

Training Courses

The provision of training courses across a large range of topics is a crucial part of our services. Classroom and digital workshops, as well as on-the-job training and coaching sessions are the most important training methods we use to ensure success.

Our most popular programmes related to staff and strategy development include:

The Frankfurt School Development Finance e-Campus has become a very successful e-learning tool for professionals interested in human resource development, leadership and (risk) management.