SavvY moved to a new business model - what innovations does the company offer to the market?
Financial and business consulting company SavvY has transitioned to a new operational model. Besides their core team, they have partnered with over 50 consultants who will contribute to projects based on their expertise and experience. The decision for this change was influenced by the new demands arising in the business sector due to the shifts brought about by the pandemic.
Mariam Koyava, the founder and managing partner of SavvY, says that with the new model they will work on many more projects and, most importantly, maintain high quality.
SavvY was created 5 years ago. Before that, the founders were actively engaged with consulting businesses and companies across diverse industries.
"We could see that the consultants and company owners or the management did not understand each other. In addition, the representatives of the industry, often, due to the lack of qualified consulting support, were not able to use their potential properly."
Therefore, they established a consulting company and offered this service in a completely innovative manner to the industry. Mariam Koyava states that financial "consulting" is currently one of the key areas of SavvY, which she personally leads.
"It was then that the law on accounting, reporting and auditing was changed. It turned out that the knowledge and experience that we had, very quickly became highly demanded throughout the country. This gave us a great push for rapid development."
Today, SavvY cooperates with: Georgian and foreign investors, leading companies of the country. Also with small and medium-sized businesses with fast growth potential.
“We offer the following services: research, business plan, support in obtaining financing, business development, financial management, including CFO outsourcing. We also help to introduce innovative methodologies of team and company management. Such is, for example, the Design Sprint. We often implement projects with international donor organizations to develop the ecosystem, we conduct joint trainings, webinars, etc. ".
Mariam Koyava says that the main role in their success is played by the company's team members.
"The SavvY team consists of members with very different competencies and experience. Our consultants have experience in various leading industries in Georgia as well as international experience. We place great importance on the professional development and progress of our team members. Therefore, professional development is highly encouraged at SavvY, and we invest significantly in this area."
M: You recently changed your business model, what exactly is new?
Mariam Koyava: The pandemic has shown us that we can do many things much more easily and effectively. Since last year, we have been actively monitoring market trends and growing demand for certain consulting services. That's why we decided to take a new look at our business model and make it more interesting for both customers and employees. If before we were developing according to the traditional consulting business growth model, i.e., organic growth took place at the expense of adding internal staff, now we removed this barrier. We are glad we can work on many projects together with our new partner consultants. This move allowed us to work on a much larger number of projects while maintaining high quality. Today, we have more than 50 partner consultants who may not be full-time SavvY teammates, but are involved in our projects based on their competence and experience. The process of finding partner consultants is ongoing and it is very impressive how many strong professionals are there in Georgia.
M: What are the advantages of this new model?
Flexibility and professionalism. Today, we focus not only on the professionalism of SavvY's core team, but also on consultants who may be employed in various industries and possess the latest, tried and true techniques. In addition, since the foundation, we have been using a digital project management system to interact with clients. Consequently, nothing has changed in terms of project management for our clients. By moving to the new model, we were able to add several strategic directions, as well as to manage more projects.
M: In the competitive environment and the new reality created by the pandemic, what is SavvY's advantage?
Our main advantage is different creativity and a desire for change. We approach each project and company individually and specially. Every task is seen as personal, and we always strive for perfection.
M: How popular are business consulting services currently?
Nowadays, I can say that the demand for SavvY services is steadily growing. A kind of seasonality characterizes consulting business. We are currently very busy and working on many interesting projects, which we will introduce to you step by step. When the pandemic situation in the country eases further, we expect a significant increase in the demand for consulting services.
M: How has the pandemic changed the business environment and what new needs have emerged in the industry?
The pandemic has changed many businesses quite thoroughly. We have observed various strategies being implemented in response to these changes. One of the quickest responses has been the implementation of drastic cost reduction and optimization. That led many companies to understand that it has been possible for them to manage costs much more effectively. Additionally, numerous companies have strategically responded by embracing new business opportunities, such as making significant changes to their business model and target customer segment.
M: What are your future plans?
Our plans are related to the internationalization of consulting services. Before the pandemic, we had already started exporting the service to the UK. Despite the current situation, we have recently implemented several interesting projects. We plan to further increase the export of services not only to developed countries, but also to developing countries. The new business model allows us to represent SavvY employees and many leading specialists working in the country.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that it is a priority for us to strengthen and grow in the domestic market. We believe that there are quite a few companies with great potential.