When an independent and objective outside-in assessment of a company in distress is required, we leverage our deep industry expertise and extensive restructuring experience to identify risks and opportunities. This enables us to assess business-plan revenues, profits, and cash flows. In particular, we focus on the viability of the business design and the ability of the company to win against its competitors.

Using benchmarks and best practices from industry peers and our toolbox of methods to achieve operational excellence, we offer concrete recommendations on how to improve profitability and liquidity, often even beyond what was planned in the original business plan.

Hence, our IBRs are more than formal reviews; they create real value for the company.

In devising sustainably successful restructuring approaches for clients, Oliver Wyman draws on our deep base of knowledge about market trends and specific success factors, our far-reaching expertise in operational excellence methodologies, and our solid grasp of the needs and options of various financial sponsors (such as equity/borrowed capital). We take an integrated approach in this work, and we base our restructuring concepts on four pillars:

• Strategic repositioning: The focus is placed on core markets and potentially profitable business fields. Business operations that destroy value will be closed or divested.
• Value-focused business model: Using our approach called value-driven business design, we optimize such business drivers as a company's customer, product, and technology portfolio, define core skills, and bring the organization into alignment with the strategy.
• Operational excellence: The focus is placed on lean organizations and processes. In particular, this work is aimed at simplifying production networks and increasing efficiency and effectiveness by applying such methodologies as LEAN and Six Sigma. In addition, purchasing and the entire supply chain are optimized.
• Financial restructuring: On the basis of the strategic repositioning work, the value-focused business model, and operational-excellence programs, we determine liquidity needs and the requirements for a sound capital structure through the use of integrated financial planning. This creates the foundation for a financing concept that optimally weighs the interests and decision-making freedom of all participating parties. 

Careful monitoring of the project's implementation is key to its success. Also vital is keeping all stakeholders up to date on the status of implementation, transparently reporting potential problems. Effective communication enables barriers to implementation to be identified at an early stage and then removed. Oliver Wyman assists with the implementation of restructuring programs in a number of ways, including:

• Monitoring the implementation and the achievement of planned improvements
• Delivering regular status reports to management, owners, and financial stakeholders 
• Performing ongoing liquidity management (including rolling liquidity projections, liquidity-bolstering steps, and potential problems)
• Supporting communications activities about the restructuring program within the company and to external stakeholders

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