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Business valuations
We offer expert valuation advice in transactions, regulatory and administrative matters, and matters subject to dispute – valuing businesses, shares and intangible assets in a wide range of industries.
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Capital markets
You need corporate finance specialists experienced in international capital markets on your side if you’re buying or selling financial securities.
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Complex and international services
Our experience of multi-jurisdictional insolvencies coupled with our international reputation allows us to deliver the best possible outcome for all stakeholders.
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Corporate insolvency
Our corporate investigation and recovery teams can help you manage insolvency situations and facilitate the best outcome.
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Debt advisory
An optimal funding structure for your organisation presents unprecedented opportunities, but achieving this can be difficult without a trusted advisor.
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Expert witness
Our expert witnesses analyse, interpret, summarise and present complex financial and business-related issues which are understandable and properly supported.
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Financial models
A sound financial model will help you understand the impact of your decisions before you make them. Talk to us about our user-friendly models.
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Forensic and investigation services
We provide investigative accounting and litigation support services for commercial, matrimonial, criminal, business valuation and insurance disputes.
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Independent business review
Is your business viable? Will it remain viable in the future? A thorough independent business review can help your organisation answer these fundamental questions.
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IT forensics
Effective ESI analysis is integral to the success of your business. Our IT forensics experts have the technical expertise to identify, preserve and interrogate electronic data.
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Mergers and acquisitions
Grant Thornton provides strategic and execution support for mergers, acquisitions, sales and fundraising.
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Raising finance
Raising finance - funders value partners who can deliver a robust financial model, a sound business strategy and rigorous planning. We can guide you through the challenges that these transactions can pose and help you build a foundation for long term success once the deal is done.
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Relationship property services
Grant Thornton offers high quality independent advice on the many financial issues associated with relationship property from considering an individual financial issue to all aspects of a complex settlement.
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Restructuring and turnaround
Grant Thornton’s restructuring and turnaround service capabilities include cash flow, liquidity management and forecasting; crisis and interim management; financial advisory services to companies and parties in transition and distress
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Transaction advisory
Our depth of market knowledge will steer you through the transaction process. Grant Thornton’s dynamic teams offer range of financial, commercial and operational expertise.
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Virtual asset advisory
Helping you navigate the world of virtual currencies and decentralised financial systems.
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Corporate tax
Grant Thornton can identify tax issues, risks and opportunities in your organisation and implement strategies to improve your bottom line.
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Employment tax
Grant Thornton’s advisers can help you with PAYE (payroll tax), Kiwisaver, fringe benefits tax (FBT), student loans, global mobility services, international tax
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Global mobility services
Our team can help expatriates and their employers deal with tax and employment matters both in New Zealand and overseas. With the correct planning advice, employee allowances and benefits may be structured to avoid double taxation and achieve tax savings.
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GST
GST has the potential to become a minefield and can be expensive when it goes wrong. Our technical knowledge can help you minimise the negative impact of GST
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International tax
International tax rules are undergoing their biggest change in a generation. Tax authorities around the world are increasingly vigilant, especially when it comes to global operations.
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Research and Development
R&D tax incentives are often underused and misunderstood – is your business maximising opportunities for making claims?
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Tax compliance
Our advisers help clients manage the critical issue of compliance across accountancy regulations, corporation law and tax. We also offer business and wealth advisory services, which means we can provide a seamless and tax-effective offering to our clients.
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Tax governance
Mitigate tax risks and implement best practice governance that will stand up to IRD scrutiny and audits.
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Transfer pricing
Tax authorities are demanding transparency in international arrangements. We businesses comply with regulations and use transfer pricing as a strategic planning tool.
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Audit methodology
Our five step audit methodology offers a high quality service wherever you are in the world and includes planning, risk assessment, testing internal controls, substantive testing, and concluding and reporting
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Audit technology
We apply our audit methodology with an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite. Our technology has been developed to produce quality audits that are effective and efficient.
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Financial reporting advisory
Our financial reporting advisers have the expertise to help you deal with the constantly evolving regulatory environment.
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Business architecture
Our business architects help businesses with disruptive conditions, business expansion and competitive challenges; the deployment of your strategy is critical to success.
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Cloud services
Leverage the cloud to keep your data safe, operate more efficiently, reduce costs and create a better experience for your employees and clients.
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Internal audit
Our internal audits deliver independent assurance over key controls within your riskiest processes, proving what works and what doesn’t and recommending improvements.
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IT advisory
Our hands on product experience, extensive functional knowledge and industry insights help clients solve complex IT and technology issues
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IT privacy and security
IT privacy and security should support your business strategy. Our pragmatic approach focuses on reducing cyber security risks specific to your organisation
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Payroll assurance
Our specialist payroll assurance team can conduct a review of your payroll system configuration and processes, and then help you and your team to implement any necessary recalculations.
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PCI DSS
Our information security specialists are approved Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) that have been qualified by the PCI Security Standards Council to independently assess merchants and service providers.
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Process improvement
As your organisation grows in size and complexity, processes that were once enabling often become cumbersome and inefficient. To maintain growth, your business must remain flexible, agile and profitable
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Procurement/supply chain
Procurement and supply chain inputs will often dominate your balance sheet and constantly evolve for organisations to remain competitive and meet changing customer requirements
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Project assurance
Major programmes and projects expose you to significant financial and reputational risk throughout their life cycle. Don’t let these risks become a reality.
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Risk management
We understand that growing companies need to establish robust internal controls, and use information technology to effectively mitigate risk.
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Robotic process automation (RPA)
RPA is emerging as the most sophisticated form of automation used to help businesses become more agile and remain competitive in the face of today’s ongoing digital disruption.
Get to know your customers again
27 Nov 2020
Onboard analytics help racing cars align the performance of the vehicle with the conditions of the track, similarly businesses must use insight to adjust to customer behaviour and restore growth.
The global pandemic combined with self-isolation and economic uncertainty is changing the way people consume products and services – possibly forever. Businesses will become irrelevant to their customer base if they fail to understand the changing behaviours and priorities brought about by the pandemic. Understanding the customer's new world has never been more critical. Mid-market businesses need to use this time to assess whether they have the right business intelligence and engagement tools to understand and meet their customers' changing needs.
The latest IBR data shows that 40.8% of global respondents have started to plan for the customers and markets they will prioritise in preparation for recovery. Meanwhile, 40.7% of global respondents said they'd started to plan what products or services that they will prioritise with 27.4% of businesses reporting they would need to make fundamental changes to what they take to market. Furthermore, over 35% of companies said they would need to make changes to more contractual flexibility in delivering products or services to customers' following the COVID crisis.
Audit your customer analytics
Agility is essential in a rapidly moving commercial landscape, and the right data analytics can give you a real-time overview of what is going on among your customers when activity picks up. Do you have an adequate array of tools to help you quickly get a handle on customer dynamics?
There are plenty of tools to consider in the mix, such as natural language processing and machine learning that can assess sentiment in recording calls with your customers and identify key themes and trends. Another is social media monitoring which can help you measure customer sentiment. Meanwhile, transactions and personal data analysis – particularly in the financial services – can alert you if customers are in a high-risk category following income drops or a sudden increase in expenditure, or are otherwise vulnerable.
Communicate with your customers and anticipate their changing needs
While analytics provide broad insight, customer communication remains more valuable than ever from both a basic survival and future trends perspective.
Ian Pascoe, CEO and managing partner at Grant Thornton Thailand, says: "Working much closer with your customers is critical. Engagement is vitally important. You've got to over-communicate and not hide things. Really engage with clients/customers and if there is a problem come out and say, 'There is a problem, but we are working on a plan'."
Beyond the firefighting element, use all engagement channels to measure the mood of customers and understand the issues they face. They can also provide an opportunity to offer solutions and showcase the brand. Pascoe says: "It is about looking at new ways of doing things and making sure that your name is still out there, so it doesn't disappear."
The decline of physical meetings presents challenges to relationships. However, alternative interactions such as video calling, prove to have benefits of their own and with people spending less time travelling there is more time to make those calls. Pascoe says: "When you're talking to clients in their homes, it's almost a better more personal relationship you're building. And now that people are used to and increasingly expect to see people on video, you're able to potentially offer a better service because you can bring relevant people in from anywhere in the world."
Improve digital engagement with consumers
Communications need to work particularly hard in the retail sector. Before COVID-19, you could walk into shops and have a strong sense of branding and see the display. Pallavi Bakhru, partner at Grant Thornton India, says: "The whole customer experience set one shop apart from another, but in a time like this when everybody's probably shopping online, how you talk to your customers, how you communicate, what messaging you're giving out, has suddenly become a differentiator."
People around the world are turning to technology at a very rapid rate. That is providing new opportunities for those that have a robust online presence. Bakhru says: "Things that we would have done probably five years down the road, we're doing them today. I think it's also because everybody suddenly started feeling that technology is your interface with the world."
"People traditionally in India, were used to going to the market and buying their groceries, they didn't typically go online, but it's changed. In just these few months of the pandemic, people are now buying their groceries online because they're scared of stepping out of homes. So more businesses are now coming onto a platform."
Use digital channels to access customers beyond your borders
The geographical constraints for professional services have blurred now that the widespread adoption of digital enables more cross border advice and consultancy.
Bakhru says: "That geographical line that we all had for services, where you felt that the person should sit across from you in person and talk, all that is changing. There is going to be a larger market for service providers. If you are an architect, for example, you could advise on design to anybody, in any part of the world, and for clients, there'll be more competitive services available. Suddenly, talent will become a premium; as a customer, you'll go to the best or the most affordable available."
Don't ignore the value of reputations
While many businesses are focused on survival, resilience and recovery cannot be built on poor reputations. Fair treatment of staff, suppliers as well as good sustainability and environmental policies – at this time and in the future – will matter to customers.
Tony Markwell, managing partner private advisory Grant Thornton Australia, says: "When you have a recession, people fall back to staples, they'll fall back to things that are locally sourced and sustainable. If you're in a business that's not in that field, you have to say, 'I need to have an alternative plan to get into that field,' or shift in the market to make it clear to customers that I have local suppliers, or that my products aren't something to be feared."
The track ahead is overshadowed with uncertainty, and businesses need to retune their customer strategies and operations to meet the conditions. Against a backdrop of ever-changing economic and societal norms, understanding what your customers are doing and feeling – and why – has never been more important. Businesses need to know where their customer opportunities are and, once understood, be ready to engage with clarity and purpose. They will need to receive as well as they broadcast; to listen as well as they speak.