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How a Digital Health Leader Built a Forecast Infrastructure That Lasted Two Years

Business Challenges

  • A three-way merger created immediate demand for integrated financial forecasting that the company’s internal FP&A team lacked the capacity to build or manage.
  • The unexpected departure of the VP of Finance left a small analyst team without leadership at a critical point in the company’s growth trajectory.
  • A fully remote engagement spanning multiple U.S. states required a new project delivery model at a time when virtual-first consulting was still emerging.

Key Outcomes

  • Sustained FP&A continuity during a leadership gap by stepping in to manage a two-person analyst team for the parent company and absorbing senior-level financial planning functions — then extended that management role across all combined entities for approximately six months to ensure a steady post-merger transition.
  • Delivered two integrated forecast models within six and eight weeks respectively, giving leadership and investors a unified financial view of the newly combined entity for the first time.
  • Built a repeatable forecasting methodology that the client used for over a year post-engagement, saving an estimated two full-time FP&A analysts six weeks of re-work time.

Project Overview

When a market leader in at-home diagnostic health testing and telehealth services completed a complex three-way merger, the resulting entity faced a challenge familiar to many high-growth companies: the business had scaled faster than its financial infrastructure. With $400+ million in combined revenue, 500 employees, millions of consumer customers, and 300+ enterprise clients across 50 states, the company needed the forecasting capability to match its new scale. Our team was engaged to provide that capability across three sequential phases spanning roughly one year.

Business Challenge

The initial engagement was defined by a specific, solvable problem: the company’s existing corporate model needed to be rebuilt to integrate the sales funnel forecast and function as a rolling forecast updated with monthly actuals. That work, while focused, was foundational, and it established the trust that made deeper collaboration possible.

Circumstances shifted when the VP of Finance departed unexpectedly. The two-person FP&A team was left without senior leadership at the same time the company was evaluating new market opportunities and actively pursuing acquisitions. The company needed more than a model builder, it needed someone to manage the team, maintain momentum, and provide the financial analysis required to support major strategic decisions, including buy-side analysis of a target company the organization would ultimately acquire.

The most demanding challenge came after the merger closed. Three distinct legal entities — each with its own financial structure, reporting cadence, and business model — now needed to be consolidated under a single forecast. Internal staff had neither the capacity nor the bandwidth to execute a build of that complexity, let alone restructure it to reflect the company’s Consumer and Enterprise business lines. And the entire effort had to be delivered remotely, with a consulting team spread across three cities and key client contacts dispersed across multiple states — a project delivery model that was still relatively new at the time.

The Approach

Our team structured the engagement in three phases, each building on the institutional knowledge and credibility developed in prior work.

In the first phase, we rebuilt the legacy corporate model for the original operating company, integrating the sales funnel forecast and retooling the model to support a monthly rolling forecast process. This established both the technical framework and the working relationship that carried into everything that followed.

When the VP of Finance departed, we transitioned into an interim management role — overseeing the two-person FP&A analyst team on a daily basis while simultaneously taking on special projects. That included a market viability assessment for a new business category under consideration and financial scenario analysis to support the acquisition of one of the company’s target companies.

The final phase was the most expansive. We brought in a broader team — including consultants focused on project management, model building, and business partnership, as well as additional analyst support — to build the integrated forecast for the newly formed combined entity. The work unfolded in two sub-phases. The first delivered an entity-based integrated forecast consolidating all three acquired companies, completed within six weeks. The second restructured the forecast around the company’s strategic business units, distinguishing Consumer from Enterprise revenue, and was completed within eight weeks. All coordination, review sessions, and stakeholder communication was executed entirely through virtual calls.

The Results

  • Provided a functional, integrated corporate model that met the company’s requirements and established a reliable rolling forecast process used to keep leadership aligned on a monthly basis.
  • Maintained FP&A team stability through an unplanned leadership transition, keeping the analyst team productive and moving in a consistent direction while senior functions were absorbed by our consultants.
  • Delivered a market viability assessment for a new business category and financial scenario analysis supporting a key acquisition decision.
  • Completed a consolidated, entity-based integrated forecast for the newly combined organization within six weeks of engagement start, giving leadership a unified financial view for the first time.
  • Restructured the integrated forecast by business unit and product line within eight weeks, enabling leadership and investors to evaluate Consumer versus Enterprise performance in a single model.
  • Developed a forecasting methodology durable enough that the client relied on it for approximately two years following project completion, a direct measure of the model’s scalability and repeatability.
  • Saved an estimated three full-time FP&A analysts six weeks of re-work time over the two-year period following delivery, by eliminating the need to rebuild the forecast from scratch with each new planning cycle.