With clearly defined goals and aspirations, you are ready to commence your growth trajectory by deploying a solid strategy. Strategy is about making choices to win in the marketplace. We can support you in making the right decisions and in defining what it is you need to win, today and tomorrow.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• Which customers and segments should we prioritise?
• What products and/or services should we offer? Through what kind of profit model and at what price?
• What should our operating model look like to enable our position and support our channel strategy?
• Which strategic partnerships, alliances or acquisitions should we consider for sector or geographical expansion?

How can we partner up?

• Further refine your growth strategy to accelerate your growth plans by means of a Growth Lab.
• Identify and develop potential strategic partnerships, alliances or acquisitions. Get end-to-end guidance throughout the M&A process.
• Perform an in-depth review of your profit model and optimise your pricing, ensuring a sustainable business model.
• Design your target operating model to remain flexible and future proof.
• Set out your intellectual property strategy to maximise your IP’s benefits.
   

Your scaling organisation is nothing without its winning team, or our customers. One of the biggest challenges in your growth journey is to retain and attract that talent. But what else do you need, apart from an attractive rewards package? Discover how Deloitte can assist you.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• How do we attract, engage and retain our talent?
• How do we structure our organisation and teams?
• Which talent do we need to support our growth?
• What should the reward package look like?
• How should we organise our international workforce?

How can we partner up?

• Gain insights into how to optimise your rewards strategy to keep your employees motivated and attract new employees.
• Get payroll and legal support across the world, from our global network.
• Get advise on your full talent acquisition process or outsource your recruitment activities.
• Enhance your contracting with employees and make sure you are prepared for a possible social inspection.
• Get insights into how to build your HR strategy and how to maximise your talent as a driver for your growth.
   

As a scale-up, it is key to having a tailored funding mix is key to fuel your growth throughout your life cycle. What is the optimal funding mix for your scale-up? What are the potential pitfalls? We are here to assist you in these essential matters.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• How can we fund our R&D or investments via public funding and incentives?
• How deep do we go with equity fundraising?
• How can we monetise opportunities?
• How can we be relevant with respect to working capital?
• How can we leverage our international network?
• How can we position ourselves as matchmaker between scale-ups and funders?

How can we partner up?

• Working capital optimisation
  Cash planning & strategy | Cash cycle processes I WC Dashboarding & Analytics
• Grants and incentives
  Flanders, Brussels, Wallonia and EU cash grants, tax credit
• Equity fundraising
  Series B/C and growth capital
• Debt fundraising
  Venture debt, recurring revenue lending, EIB financing and growth financing
   

Digital capabilities are often part of a scale-up’s DNA, but as you grow these capabilities are required to support your daily operations as well. What enterprise software is best suitable to meet your needs? How do you ensure your digital transformation is driven by the needs of your customers and employees? With a wide array of knowledge and expertise, Deloitte is ready to assist you.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• How do we really get to know our customers and tailor our digital communication channels to their needs?
• How can we scale our operations and client base, supported by the right IT architecture?
• Which digital capabilities do we need to support our sales, customer service, marketing automation or e-commerce ambitions?
• What can we do to manage customer retention proactively?
• How can we create new products, services and sales channels, and integrate them into our existing digital capabilities?
• How do we translate our data into powerful insights across different platforms?

How can we partner up?

• Bring your sales, service, marketing and finance teams to the next level by introducing industry practices and best-in-class technologies.
• Have an idea? Great! Utilise digital methodologies to transform it into reality by creating custom experiences for all audiences within weeks.
• Are you on track? Transform your data into key insights, in order to efficiently manage your strategic and day-to-day operations.
• Create a clear roadmap that brings your digital operations to a higher level.
   

As you grow, staying compliant as well as guaranteeing your required reporting can quickly become a burden. How do you make sure you keep track of your finances and your reporting is not just compliant, but also offers clear insights to help you take the right decisions? We can support your Belgian HQ and international offices as your global accounting, tax and reporting partner.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• How do we process our invoices, payments, expense notes, etc. in a digital, efficient and timely manner?
• How do we cope with increasing compliance requirements?
• How do we provide meaningful reporting to stakeholders?
• How do we deal with business events such as M&A, expansion to new markets and/or countries, or changes within the operating model?
• How do we address temporary financial resourcing needs?
• How can we benefit from tax incentives?

How can we partner up?

• Access seamless end-to-end multi-territory accounting, tax and reporting services, supported by a future-proof tooling setup.
• Empower your finance department by filling positions such as (chief) accountant, finance manager, cost accountant, budget/financial planner/controller, and many made-to-measure solutions.
• Gain clear insights into your margins through the commercial and operational dimensions that suit your business. Optimise data registration and reporting processes and install management reporting systems to support strategic decision making and risk/performance management (actuals vs. budget, KPIs, …).
• Get assistance with tax incentives, credits such as exemption wage taxes and innovation income deduction, and advise on the implementation of international tax structuring and transfer pricing.
   

Throughout a scale-up’s life cycle, there are many legal hurdles to overcome. With topics ranging from contracting to intellectual property to shareholder agreements and many more, it is safe to say legal can become somewhat of a challenge. How do you address these fundamental elements? Our scale-up specific legal experts can support you in a swift, agile and no-nonsense manner.

How to turn legal into a business enabler?

Legal consultants and lawyers can not only be your advisor but also your coach, connector and gamechanger! Scroll down and discover the legal services we offer.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• How do we align interests between investors, founders and company objectives in negotiating deal terms?
• How can we optimise the customer experience in the contractual onboarding process?
• How can we engage our intellectual property and how do we determine what IP-strategy fits our business?
• How can we obtain legal comfort without slowing down our deal-making process?
• Do we need different legal support for issues that our co-founders, investors, board and software developers encounter?

How can we partner up?

• Get support to ensure that you cover all of your compliance needs, including GDRP and data protection regulations.
• Secure your intellectual property to maximise your benefits.
• Enhance your commercial, partnership or technology-oriented contracting from both a legal as well as a business perspective.
• Confirm your deal with your (co-)founders and/or investors in a term sheet and shareholders' agreement.
• Facilitate your deal making, with guidance every step of the way.
• Get assistance with all types of dispute resolution, from litigation to mediation.
   

The development of a technology product in a rapid growth environment might quickly become a significant challenge for scale-ups. Typically, technology is required to support rapid increases in demand and allow for a fast-moving functional scope. In this context, how do you make sure that your product is built on the right technology architecture allowing you to scale fast in a secured manner? Our experts help you optimize your product development to fit today needs, with the robustness to face tomorrow constraints.

Challenges or questions you might face:

• What should be our main IT priority to support our growth?
• How can we enable change in our solution architecture?
• Is our technology flexible enough for scaling users and/or functionalities?
• Is our technology governance and sourcing model optimal?
• How can we optimise our technology spending?
• What is our exposure level against ever-evolving cyber threats?
• How do we implement a security culture at employee level?
• How should we manage our data to maximise its potential?

How can we partner up?

• Analyse whether your current technology stack is fit for purpose, well-architected and will be able to handle growth or changes, highlighting key success factors for scalable technology.
• Define the right structure for delivery and operations at scale with DevSecOps principles beyond the MVP phase.
• Assess opportunities for performance, cost effectiveness, architecture and monitoring improvements in the infrastructure.
• Perform a web platform vulnerability assessment to assess how secure your core product is performing from a security point of view by reviewing key security domains.
• Imagine the data ecosystem and design the right supporting landscape with MDM and big data.
• Assess the technology landscape and organisation to feed financial transaction investigation processes.