Zeidman & Co. has accumulated extensive and unique experience in providing legal counsel in streamlining processes corporations, across various industries, including high-tech companies and industrial companies.
Our in-depth knowledge in this fields stems from many years of practical experience in advising corporations, including as external consultants, internal legal advisors, and directors of private and public companies.
We leverage our expertise and knowledge by offering our clients the full, comprehensive range of planning and execution in this complex process, to improve our clients’ business, economic and operational performance, as well as the recovery and corporate efficiency processes.
Streamlining work is not only suitable for loss-making corporations, after the fact. The longer a corporation exists, the greater its operating expenses and the less efficient its commercial resources. A corporation that knows how to conduct itself correctly, streamline and improve on an ongoing basis, will produce more from its commercial engagements, reduce unnecessary expenses, improve its human resources system, consolidate and split activities efficiently and improve its financing terms, thus maintaining growth, in good times as in bad, and will be better prepared any recession or catastrophe that might come.
The streamlining work includes the process of examination and identification in a range of aspects, top-down in the first stage, of segments and areas in the corporation that may affect the efficiency of the corporation and the profit line, in particular from legal aspects, including the examination of:
- The legal-corporate-tax structure of the corporation;
- The financing and capital raising processes in the corporation;
- The material engagements of the corporation;
- The entire labor system and human capital in the corporation.
Subsequently, the streamlining work includes recommendations to enhance legal treatment in areas that require a streamlining plan and, ultimately, the full implementation of the approved plan. This plan may include reshaping the corporate-tax structure to an efficient taxation and operational holding structure, specific or comprehensive, carrying out reorganization and streamlining processes, in-depth handling of substantive contracts and long engagements, and a reexamination of the distribution of risks and opportunities in the company’s business projects, from an external, creative, skilled and efficiency-oriented perspective – and with minimal burden on the company’s already existing ongoing loads.
Streamlining in the company is of course beneficial in global financial crisis times, when inflation is rising, sales and investments are reduced, and the markets are experiencing interest rate increases; it is, however, important to carry out streamlining processes periodically and even on an ongoing basis, as part of the very formulation of the business processes within the corporation.
Zeidman & Co. successfully accompanies corporations from a wide range of sectors and is well versed in the adjustments required for each sector – high-tech, industry, finance, energy and projects, insurance, retail and real estate, including both public and private companies, Israeli and foreign, as well as multinational companies, groups and holding companies, partnerships and funds, in these complex processes.
Manpower Related Streamlining Processes
When the corporation requires streamlining procedures relating to employees, it may consider a wide range of processes, temporarily or permanently, in order to reduce manpower-related expenses before undertaking dismissal procedures. These may include salary reductions, decrease of scope of employment, consolidation of positions, elimination of layer(s) in the organizational structure, cessation or reduction of benefits and events, utilization of accrued vacation days or unpaid leave.
Some of these processes require the employees’ consent and formal hearings before they are carried out, while others do not. Some of these processes may require comprehensive action, and some will require specific action only.
When downsizing, a corporation must manage the process carefully, in order to maintain employee loyalty, avoid negative publicity and damage to the company’s image and reputation, as well as any exposure to lawsuits.
Improper management of the process, in this aspect, for example, may be fertile ground for attempts to organize, appeal to labor organizations, and attempt to establish collective labor relations.
It is important to note that this is a sensitive and discreet procedure and must be conducted correctly from the preliminary stage until the end of the streamlining plan.
Zeidman & Co. is highly skilled in providing a vast array of solutions, deep-diving into the root of each case and implementing tailor-made, applicable legal arrangements, from a long-term, strategically efficient and comprehensive business perspective. Our added value is also complemented by our ability to apply legal solutions quickly and efficiently, building on our firm’s rich experience, proactive leadership and the personal involvement of our senior attorneys.
