Kirchner Group has refined our assessment process over the years to provide an objective and comprehensive view into our clients’ strengths and weaknesses. As part of the assessment process we outline go-forward options and the pros and cons of each, allowing stakeholders to meet their fiduciary responsibility and to make well-informed decisions about the Company’s
future strategic direction.

Kirchner Group, on the back of our deep operational experience, is able to assess companies in the following approaches:

Operational

Our professionals have extensive backgrounds running private and public companies and bring deep domain expertise to the table. We are experts at differentiating between perception and reality.

The identification and analysis of the merits of each go-forward option is a key differentiator for us from consultants who may purport to provide operational assessment-like services. Typically, the main decision facing investors and BOD members in complex situations is not only (a) what to do next, but also (b) how to do it. The Kirchner Group plays a key role in illuminating these options and can step in to help execute them if appropriate. Also unlike the approach typically taken by consultants, we don’t issue a report just based on what management told us — we apply our own operational experience and in-the-trenches perspective to separate the “wheat from the chaff”. Although beyond the scope of a typical assessment, we have found that our style and operating experience typically results in an improvement in the company’s performance as a result of working alongside us for the duration of the engagement, as we offer feedback and commentary to management, openly and in real-time.

Diagnostic

In the same way that a patient needs a regular comprehensive check-up to assess their health, independent of any obvious health issues, so too do companies benefit from a regular Kirchner assessment to determine how well it is. This operational check-up goes beyond the financial statements to look closely at all aspects of the company’s operations — marketing, finance, sales, ops — determine its health and the impacts this will have on future performance. Good governance practices preclude boards from interacting with the company outside of its management team, but a Kirchner assessment provides a complete view, stem to stern, from an objective, but senior operator’s, perspective.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property assessments assist investors, inventors, companies and institutions identify unrealized or undervalued IP opportunities. Assessments can result in the identification of various alternatives for crystalizing IP value and the risks and possible rewards associated with each alternative. The Kirchner Group’s IP assessments can lead to the identification of most appropriate strategic market partners for the IP and owner(s).

Technology transfer offices can use our strategic IP assessments to identify pathways to better manage and extract value from their IP portfolio.

All our work with intellectual property is complemented by our proprietary business method model for crystallizing the value in intellectual property.

Due Diligence

When considering an investment, whether for the first time or a follow-on, Kirchner assessments are a valuable ingredient in the due diligence process providing investors with a unique operational perspective and/or information otherwise inaccessible.

The Kirchner team embeds itself in the potential investee and takes a look at the entire company, beyond the boardroom, to loading dock, the factory floor, the developers’ cubicles, to create a comprehensive and practical understanding of all strengths and weaknesses. In so doing, the investor comes away with a real and pragmatic understanding of not just what the company intends to be and do, but what it actually is and can do.

For more information contact us: assessment@kirchnergroup.com or download our fact sheet.