About Us
Empowering your business with financial
& operational excellence
Welcome to Integris, a leading financial and business advisory firm dedicated to helping businesses achieve financial success in every aspect. Founded by Chartered Accountants Amit Maru and Ritu Bhandari, we bring extensive experience in performance health checks, ESG, taxation, legal, compliance, audit, financial & operational consulting
Our Proposition
Venture Capital funds typically invest in young emerging companies usually founded by 1st time young entrepreneurs. These companies while growing very fast, are at times pivoting as they seek to get their PMF right or improve unit economics etc or are fire fighting as they deal with challenges of scaling or regulation/compliance. In the process, information based discussions between the founders and investors tends to suffer VC have large portfolio but small teams. We seek to provide the VC with the muscle to strength the review process, identify problems before they become big and help find solutions. For example, while all or most companies have an Annual Operating Plan or Business Plan,
Ensuring rigour in terms of assumptions- Breaking it into milestone that enables tracking performance vs aspiration and
- Identifying requirement (resourcing) which then enables a useful or constructive discussion
Given the early stage of business, variance of actuals vis-à-vis the operating plan may be par for course, but it is the second order impact of the variance and the second level understanding of what is working or not working that is important. Most Founders understand Tech, Consumer & Marketing very well – but translating the same into financial metrics may not necessarily come naturally. The objective is to avoid being blindsided as the Company/Founder is focused on GTM and thereby avoid mistakes, especially those that can set the business back. Therefore, our role is that of a third party that enables honest and rigorous review while the Investor can protect its relationship with the Founder and more importantly protect its investment in the Company.
Why Us?
Strong Finance & Business understanding that help understand the signs and traps. Examples of Unicorns that suffered due to upfront revenue recognition for a multi-year services or guaranteed income to their suppliers via long term contract on the market place are well known. Few other examples/scenarios that we would like to highlight
While high working capital could suggest channel stuffing or weak PMF, build-up of Working Capital (Inventory/Receivables) when WC cycle > Profit margin, can also become a cash trap (liquidity stress).
Understanding what is genuinely variable vs semi-variable or fixed cost in context of Unit economics – “fixed” nature of cost can be a positive when growth is strong as that is the source of operating leverage but similarly that can be a big drag if the company is struggling with growth. This becomes an important input for discussion related to variablizing the cost structure, arguably early-on vs backward integration to improve margins when company has established a meaningful and predicable customer demand.
Understanding the Cost of Revenues that are Reflected in Balance Sheet instead of P&L
- While growth is very important, understanding the unit economics or the investment behind the growth is equally important. Very often, the discussion is at Contribution Margin or EBITDA margin but does not go to EBIT/PBT to reflect the Cost of Depreciation or capture the inherent financing cost given extended working capital. For example,
- Business with say 90 days of receivables should ideally adjust its Gross Margin by 3% (assuming 12% as annual cost of debt) to reflect the true gross margin
- Business with say 90 days of receivables should ideally adjust its Gross Margin by 3% (assuming 12% as annual cost of debt) to reflect the true gross margin
- Similarly for businesses where there is an upfront loss which is recouped through revenue from customers over multiple years (such as life insurance), IRR based approach is more appropriate to check economic viability or appropriateness of pricing. Further, the assumptions (given revenue will be earned over longer period) need to reflect the ground experience (customer churn, cross-sell of other products or value add services etc)
Understanding the Revenue growth
- For companies that have made significant or multiple acquisitions, extracting organic growth (to the extent possible) is important to understand the true growth trajectory, need or importance of M&A and capital requirement for future M&A. RoE profile of the company itself is different if M&A is an integral part of growth
- Incorrect extrapolation of demand during extraneous periods such as COVID or extrapolation of demand from early adopters can be misleading from planning perspective.
- Inadequate build-out of team for the sales (suggesting unrealistic productivity metrics) resulting in missed revenue opportunity and/or more likely incorrect unit economics maths
BOUQUET OF SERVICES INCLUDE:
- Streamlining MIS, including Financial analysis and Problem Solving
- CFO support including helping companies build Finance & Control systems
- Internal Audit, Legal, Tax and Compliance
Amit Maru
Managing Partner
Chartered Accountant - FCA (ICAI-India), ACA (ICAEW-England & Wales), DISA, LL.B(Gen.), B.Com
Amit is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of experience in accounting, finance and advisory services. He has worked with the Big 4 firms such as Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and RSM & Co. (later merged with PwC), where he gained in-depth expertise in statutory audits, tax audits, IPO processes, taxation, internal audits, SOX audits, transfer pricing and financial due diligence.
He has also served in the consolidation and IFRS technical department of a leading NASDAQ-listed BPO company, where he focused on IFRS reporting and SEC compliance.
Currently, he is also the Managing Partner at Mitsa Advisory Services, a consultancy firm based in Mumbai, offering a wide range of multi-disciplinary services such as Assurance, Advisory, Taxation, Business Process Engineering, Risk Managementand Key Management Support for business operations.
Ritu Bhandari
Managing Partner
Chartered Accountant (Intermediate AIR 29, Foundation AIR 30), CFA (CFA Institute, USA), MBA (Distance), B.Com.
Ritu Bhandari is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst, with extensive work experience in corporate banking credit, across Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank and HSBC Bank. She was awarded the Best Credit Analyst award in Citibank N.A. Her work involved extensive analytical work in connection with understanding industry, client’s business, financial analysis including financial projections / earnings models. She has gained in-depth expertise in credit evaluation culminating in issuing a recommendation, by addressing the individual risks in a transaction.
She has also worked in a Public Policy think tank, Smahi Foundation of Policy and Research as a Head of Research, where she undertook in-depth research across various sectors/ themes such as Digital Payments, Social Commerce, Platform-based Gig Economy, Green Hydrogen etc. She has authored and published various reports and articles on the same.
