FutureForesight is first and foremost a startup/business-building team, a skill-set which spans any industry. We believe that we are one of the only (if not the only) teams in country to offer such a service, especially to do so with at-risk fee models. In addition, there are four industries in which our networks and understanding are particularly strong. In HIV and Telecoms we argue quite strongly that we are the leading consulting team in country.
FutureForesight has helped build over 20 businesses to date. Of these, 16 can be adjudicated of which only 1 is not highly profitable. That's a 94% success rate, and the non-success is by no means a failure.
We believe that the business building skill set spans all industries, and is very difficult to find within one team in SA. In fact, as far as we can ascertain, we are the only team in country offering a comprehensive suite (as opposed to plain financing) business-building capabilities:
- Strategy: 9/10 businesses fail. We claim that they were dead before they started, and our McKinsey experience qualifies to identify these, whilst ensuring success for the live ones. Everyone knows someone who was poised to make millions but got hammered by industry; that’s what we know how to avoid.
- Financial modeling: We firmly believe that strategy is impossible without a deep understanding of the industry, and that this requires a business model (spreadsheet) of uncompromised depth. We have built some of SA’s most sophisticated models spanning distribution, telecoms, mining, and HIV, and our unique scenario management tool is now used by some of the largest companies in the world.
- Partnering: No business succeeds without partners; the dotcom insurgent days are largely over, and existing business always has the greater right-to-play. We understand this clearly enough to ensure that the FutureForesight team is always balanced between consulting expertise and highly-networked individuals.
- Empowerment: Whilst several firms position themselves as empowerment brokers, we firmly believe that empowerment is a step within business-building that cannot be managed in isolation; it is important to understand how empowerment partners will add value to the business, and then one needs to be able to select and appropriately include the best possible team. Rarely should this be done before the above three steps are complete.
- Finance raising: A combination of the above strategic expertise, industry networks, empowerment partners, and financial modeling positions us to open up creative options (eg Right-to-Care was purely grant funded), and to manage dilution with well understood funding rounds (eg and Octosmelt will be equity funded by Samancor with non-dilutory debt to follow easily).
- Growth: Surprisingly all the above is relatively easy when compared to the brutal mechanics business building. All FutureForesight partners have built and run businesses in their past work lives.
- Exit: Where an exit strategy is desirable, our industry networks serve to ensure that we have the credibility to maximise value and identify the most appropriate exit strategy.
FutureForesight pioneered treatment within SA. When we started in 2001, treatment and ART was illegal, and there was absolutely no industry experience to build upon. By partnering with a team of HIV medical experts (now SA's leading team), we were largely responsible for gestating this completely nascent arena as demonstrated by the achievements below, but most importantly the deployment and management of SA's (possibly the world's) largest HIV treatment centre at Helen Joseph Hospital.
Of note, our RTC client, led by our team, has grown to be Africa's largest recipient of PEPFAR ('Bush Billion') funding, ahead of the SA Government, and currently receives in the region of R300m/year for HIV treatment.
We are particularly proud of our ability to navigate Government attention at a time when others were being closed down when trying to secure public acclaim. Currently we have over 70,000 HIV patients under management.
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FutureForesight, through its team and strategic alliance partners has extensive expertise in the mining field. This is brought about through our consulting skills, practical mining operations experience and network of technical partners and experts.
Our core skill set is to help our clients solve challenges and maximise opportunities as they arise and to this end we can help our clients in almost any commercial or operational area. We have developed a number of specific areas where we can draw on our specific expertise:
- Operations turnaround:We help our clients analyse their existing operations performance measured against the value potential of the operation. Once gaps have been identified we then help the client develop a plan to improve the situation and where required practically help the client implement the plan.
- Procurement: By using the principals of ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ (TCO) and ‘Life Cycle Costing’ we help clients develop and implement comprehensive procurement programmes to optimize the value they obtain from their purchases for the benefit of the whole business.
- Maintenance: Many operations ‘cut costs’ in the short term by holding back on maintenance spend. We help clients develop maintenance strategies which avoid this practice and put in place a process which optimizes their spend on maintenance to maximise uptime and equipment utilisation.
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