Optimizing the financial performance of an SME

This memoir paints the picture of an African SME in the construction and public works sector, struggling to manage its business: unpaid government bills, banks with excess liquidity refusing to lend, widespread corruption, opaque corporate governance and shareholders impatient to get their shares back. In this climate, the need for an upgrading plan becomes obvious. This plan defines a strategy, based on a diagnosis. The plan then sets out the activities to be carried out within a reasonable timescale, for a resolution plan based on convincing hypotheses and strategic choices structured according to the verification of these hypotheses. In this way, performance is steered by a Research and Development unit, which does not yet exist in many structures. This unit defines the probable phase of decline and readjusts according to environmental factors and the target market. This upgrading plan therefore defines the optimum strategy for the company in difficulty, based on an objective diagnosis, and then proposes an exit plan to resolve the situation.