What Is Business Advisory?
Many business owners and decision-makers are not sure what is Business Advisory and when they need Business Advisory support for their business. Business Advisory is a professional service that helps business owners make better decisions across every part of their business. A Business Adviser works alongside you to understand what is happening, identify the problems you have not yet named, and give you practical guidance that accountants and lawyers are rarely positioned to provide on their own.
For most businesses, that means advice across structure, cash flow, commercial management, operations, and how the business is governed and run. For construction businesses specifically, it also covers contracts, procurement, tender strategy, QBCC compliance, and the commercial management function that sits between your legal adviser and your accountant.
Business Advisory is not a single defined product. You do not engage a Business Adviser to lodge your BAS or review a contract clause. You engage one because something in your business is not working as it should, or because you are about to make a decision large enough to get wrong, and you want someone with direct industry experience in the room with you.
Business Advisory Across All Industries
Business owners in most industries face a version of the same problem: the decisions that actually drive underperformance rarely sit neatly inside one professional discipline.
A cash flow problem may trace back to pricing that was set too low, an overhead base that grew faster than margin, or receivables that are not being managed tightly enough. A governance problem may be causing good decisions to be made slowly, or bad decisions to be made without the right checks. A structure that made sense when the business was turning over $2M may be creating real risk, tax drag, or asset exposure at $15M.
Your accountant can see the numbers. Your lawyer can manage the legal risk. A Business Adviser who understands your industry can connect those observations into a picture of what is actually happening and what you need to do about it.
Blaze Business & Legal provides business advisory to businesses across a range of industries, with particular depth in construction, civil, infrastructure, and related industries where Rachelle and Shannon have each spent more than 25 years working.
Business Advisory for Construction Businesses
Construction businesses face particular challenges that make Business Advisory more important, and more complex, than it is for most other industries.
The particular challenge is that problems driving underperformance in construction rarely fit a single professional discipline. A cash flow problem may trace back to a contract underpriced at tender, a payment schedule with inadequate milestones, a retention sum that has never been recovered, or an overhead base that grew faster than margin. Your accountant can see the cash. Your lawyer can read the contract. A Business Adviser who understands construction can connect those observations into a picture of what is actually happening and what you need to do about it.
Blaze Business & Legal works primarily with construction businesses turning over $5M to $100M+, including head contractors, subcontractors, and specialist trade contractors across residential, commercial, civil, infrastructure, mining services, and defence sectors.
What does Business Advisory Cover?
Business Advisory covers the decisions and problems business owners deal with throughout the life of a business. At Blaze Business & Legal, Rachelle Hare and Shannon Drew advise across business structure and asset protection, commercial management, financial management, cash flow, management reporting, operational performance, contract strategy, risk management, growth, succession planning, and exit planning.
Most engagements draw on several of these areas at once, because the decisions owners bring to a Strategy Session rarely have a single dimension.
1. Business Structure & Business Structuring
Business structuring matters for construction businesses in a way it does not for most other industries. The personal exposure of directors and owners is often significant. QBCC licensing requirements interact directly with corporate structure. The way a business is structured affects what it can bid for, what bonding it can access, and how Principals and financiers assess a contractor.
For businesses in other industries, the structuring considerations are different but equally consequential: asset protection, tax efficiency, shareholder arrangements, and readiness for sale or succession all require structure to be reviewed as the business grows.
Rachelle and Shannon regularly review structures that were appropriate at $2M in revenue but create real risk at $15M or $25M.
2. Cash Flow & Financial Management
Cash flow in construction has a different character from most industries. Revenue comes through progress claims governed by the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld), and payments are affected by retention, disputed variations, time-bar provisions, and a Principal’s assessment of practical completion.
Many cash flow problems in construction start six months before they appear in the bank account, and they start at the project level.
For businesses in other industries, cash flow problems have different drivers but follow similar patterns: revenue is recorded before cash arrives, costs run ahead of billing cycles, and working capital is consumed by growth rather than freeing up with it.
Shannon works with business owners on cash flow forecasting, management accounts, WIP reporting, QBCC Minimum Financial Requirements compliance, and the connection between operational profitability and business-level cash position.
3. Commercial Management
Commercial management covers the decisions that sit between legal advice and financial reporting. Before you price a tender, someone needs to assess the commercial risk in the contract. Before you sign a subcontract, someone needs to understand how it allocates delay and defect risk. Before you pursue a variation, someone needs to know whether the contractual notice provisions under your AS 4000, AS 2124, or NEC contract were complied with and whether the entitlement is solid.
Rachelle held commercial management roles, seconded from top-tier law firms and then through Blaze Business & Legal, inside organisations including Thiess, Laing O’Rourke, DHA, Golding, UGL, Acciona, CASG, and a Construction and Technology Provider on a national infrastructure program. That background is what makes the commercial advisory here different from what a private practice lawyer or a management consultant provides. She has been on the contractor’s side of the table for every type of commercial decision her clients now bring to her.
4. Operational Advisory
Operational advisory covers how the business runs: systems, reporting structures, how decisions get made, who has authority to commit the business, and whether the management team can operate without the owner’s involvement on every decision.
5. Governance Advisory
Governance advisory covers how the business is directed: delegations, risk frameworks, and reporting to owners or directors. These are areas where businesses often have gaps that become visible only when the business grows or when something goes wrong.
What Business Advisory Is Not
Business Advisory does not replace your accountant and their accounting services, nor bookkeeping services. Tax compliance, BAS, payroll, and financial statements need to sit with a registered tax agent. Shannon Drew provides management accounting, cash flow modelling, WIP reporting, and fractional CFO services, which are distinct from tax compliance and are Business Advisory rather than tax compliance functions.
Business Advisory does not replace your lawyer and legal services either. Where a dispute has moved into adjudication, arbitration or court proceedings, you will need to engage a Dispute Lawyer. Where you need advice on Commercial Law, front-end Construction Law or other legal services for your business, that requires a registered Solicitor. Rachelle Hare provides both Business Advice and Legal Advice (through separate engagements) on construction contracts, contract review, Security of Payment Act issues, contract negotiation, the legal aspects of Business Structuring, and pre-litigation dispute resolution as part of the full-service offering at Blaze Business & Legal.
Business Advisory does not include provision of financial product advice. Shannon does not assess or recommend financial products, credit facilities, investment structures or products, or insurance products. Businesses needing regulated financial advice should engage an Australian Financial Services licensed adviser.
What Business Advisory provides is experienced, practical guidance on the decisions that fall between those professional boundaries, from people who have worked inside businesses across industries and understand how they actually operate.
When Businesses Need a Business Adviser
Business owners tend to need a Business Advisor at different points in the life of their business.
The most common is when revenue has grown but cash has not followed, and the owner cannot identify why. A business turning over $12M with consistently tight cash is a very different problem from a business turning over $12M that is profitable but poorly structured, and the advice that helps is different in each case.
A second common point is when the owner recognises that the business runs on them. Every significant decision requires their involvement. Key staff may be capable but do not have the authority or the systems to act independently. The business has grown to a point where the owner’s involvement in every decision is the single biggest constraint on its performance.
A third common point is when a major contract, opportunity, or step-change is in front of the business. For construction businesses, that might mean stepping up to Tier 2 work, pursuing Brisbane 2032 infrastructure contracts, or entering a new sector. For businesses in other industries, it might mean a major new client, a government tender, a geographic expansion, or a significant acquisition.
The advice needed at that point is not legal, accounting or financial advice on its own. It is whole-of-business advisory from someone who understands the industry.
A fourth common point is ownership transition and succession planning. A founder approaching their late 50s or 60s, with a business that runs on their relationships and their presence, faces a set of decisions about structure, succession, management transition, and eventual exit that accountants and lawyers can each assist with in part, but that require integrated whole-of-business guidance to navigate in the right sequence.
Who Provides Business Advisory at Blaze Business & Legal
Rachelle Hare is a Construction Lawyer, Commercial Manager and Business Adviser. Her 25+ years of experience includes private practice at McCullough Robertson, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, and Meyer Vandenberg, and in-house roles acting as General Counsel at Thiess and DHA, Senior Legal Counsel at Laing O’Rourke, and Senior Legal Counsel at Airservices Australia.
Through Blaze Business & Legal she has contracted as Senior Legal Counsel to Golding, UGL, and Acciona, as Commercial Manager to CASG and a national Construction and Technology Provider, and spent eight months as Deputy Program Manager on a critical national infrastructure program.
Across those roles she has been on the contractor’s side of the table for every type of commercial decision, dispute, and negotiation that her clients now bring to her.
Shannon Drew is a Management Accountant, Fractional CFO and Business Adviser with 25+ years of construction industry experience. He has worked inside and alongside businesses from small specialist subcontractors through to large head contractors and Commonwealth clients.
His work covers management accounting, cost accounting, cash flow forecasting, WIP reporting, project profitability analysis, pricing strategy, QBCC Minimum Financial Requirements compliance, and business advisory across the full scope of a business’s financial and operational performance.
Rachelle and Shannon work closely together on engagements where the legal, commercial, operational, structuring and financial dimensions of a business’s decisions overlap.
From the Building Site – Rachelle Hare
I see the same pattern regularly. An owner arrives at our Strategy Session with a concern about a problem their business is having or a planned action they want to chat about. Within the first twenty minutes, Shannon and I have usually identified two or three other issues or factors they did not mention or realise existed.
A cash flow tightening that started as a payment dispute, which started as a missed variation notice, which started as a contract signed without a proper understanding of the notice obligations in the AS 4000 or the bespoke head contract. The advice that is genuinely useful in that situation is not legal advice on the contract. It is help seeing all of those connections at once, and understanding which one to address first.
That pattern applies across industries, not just construction. The presenting problem is rarely the actual problem.
How Business Advisory Engagements Work
The starting point for Business Advisory at Blaze Business & Legal is a Strategy Session: a 60-minute fixed-fee engagement with both Rachelle and Shannon, at $650+GST.
No preparatory work is required. You bring the question, the decision, or the problem. Rachelle and Shannon will work through it with you, give you their assessment, and recommend a clear next step.
Some owners complete a single Strategy Session and leave with the clarity they needed to act independently. Others move into a defined engagement, whether a business review, a management reporting build, a contract review, or an advisory retainer. The scope of any engagement beyond the Strategy Session is confirmed by a fixed-price quote before work begins.
Business Advisory is available to businesses in Brisbane, South East Queensland, and Australia-wide on a remote basis.
Book a Strategy Session with Rachelle Hare and Shannon Drew
$650+GST | 60 minutes | Fixed fee | No preparation required
Call (07) 3063 3373 or book online.
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Advisory
What is the difference between Business Advisory and management consulting?
Management consulting covers a wide range of services from organisational design through to technology implementation and strategy. Business Advisory, in the way Rachelle and Shannon use it, refers to direct, practical guidance for the owner or leadership team of a business on the decisions and problems the business is dealing with now.
The emphasis is on your specific business, not on generic frameworks developed for a different industry or scale. Where Management Consulting at Blaze Business & Legal focuses on operational performance improvement, Business Advisory covers the full scope of what the business needs, including structure, commercial management, financial performance, contracts, and ownership decisions.
Does Business Advisory include legal advice?
Business Advisory at Blaze Business & Legal includes legal input where the decisions in scope require it, because Rachelle is both a Business Adviser and a Construction Lawyer. If the question concerns contract strategy, QBCC compliance, or a pre-litigation dispute position, the legal dimension is part of the advisory conversation.
Where formal legal work is required, such as a contract review with written advice or a security of payment adjudication, that work is scoped and priced separately.
What does a Strategy Session involve?
A Strategy Session is a 60-minute consultation with both Rachelle Hare and Shannon Drew, at a fixed fee of $650+GST. You do not need to prepare a briefing or send materials in advance. You bring the question or the problem, and Rachelle and Shannon will work through it with you. At the end of the session you will have their assessment and a clear recommendation about next steps. There is no obligation to proceed to any further engagement.
What size of business gets the most from Business Advisory?
Blaze Business & Legal works primarily with construction businesses turning over between $5M and $100M+. Owner-operators making most of the significant decisions personally get the most consistent value, because the business is large enough to have real complexity but does not yet have a Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, or Commercial Manager on staff.
For businesses in other industries, the same principle applies: the point at which the owner is carrying most of the consequential decisions personally, without experienced advisory support, is the point at which Business Advisory has the most direct impact.
Can I engage for Business Advisory without also engaging legal services?
Business Advisory can be engaged independently of Construction Law services. Many clients do. Rachelle and Shannon can advise on strategic, financial, commercial, and operational matters without any legal engagement in scope. Where the matters raised have a legal dimension, Rachelle will identify that and discuss whether formal legal work is appropriate.
Does Blaze Business & Legal work with businesses outside Brisbane?
All Business Advisory services are available remotely. Rachelle and Shannon work with businesses across Queensland and Australia-wide. The South Brisbane office at Suite 8, Level 7, 154 Melbourne Street is available for in-person sessions for businesses in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, and South East Queensland.
What is Strategic Business Advisory?
Strategic Business Advisory covers the longer-range decisions that affect where a business is headed: which markets to pursue, what scale of work to target, whether a joint venture or acquisition makes sense, and how to structure the business to support a transition of ownership or management. For construction businesses, that includes positioning for Brisbane 2032 infrastructure work, stepping up from Tier 3 to Tier 2 contracting, and preparing for a sale or succession.
