Evaluating new ventures

June 28, 2021

New ventures need to be understood and evaluated across a company’s entire value chain.

While it is tempting to restrict access to a small group of senior executives and negotiators, a new venture will only be truly successful if it is reviewed exhaustively by all of the teams who will be involved in its execution – management, operations, procurement, finance, legal, compliance, HR and accounting. Designing the evaluation process and incorporating input from all teams within the company is critically important.  How does that become a reality?

It begins with understanding that evaluating new ventures cannot begin when the opportunity is about to expire.  One successful strategy is to take an ongoing approach to evaluating new ventures, even in the abstract, by all teams. 

“Participative” in this respect means assigning responsibility to all teams, at all levels of the organization, for conceiving, evaluating and pursuing new ventures on an ongoing basis and developing incentive schemes that reward innovation and value creation.

While external advisors have a role to play and it can be tempting to outsource, each business function has value to add and should participate meaningfully in the origination and evaluation process. 

How can you build ongoing venture evaluation into every step of your value chain?

How can you ensure that new ventures are thought through and ultimately executed with collective purpose while maintaining flexibility and agility?

CPM