The value of a company is not determined by a single formula, but by how eight value drivers score together in the eyes of a buyer. An earnings multiple is the starting point of a calculation; the eight drivers determine whether that multiple ends up on the low or the high end of the range.
Every buyer — strategic or financial — assesses a company on a fixed set of points: customer spread, the predictability of revenue, the quality of management, dependence on the owner, the documentation of processes, the direction of growth, margin development, and the legal and tax structure. A company with 50 to 300 employees usually scores unevenly on these points: revenue may be solid while three customers together account for 60% of revenue, or management may be strong while all major decisions still run through the owner. The eight drivers are scored separately because a weak driver can overshadow a strong driver in the negotiation. What this concretely does to the price a buyer is willing to pay is set out on the page about what reduces the value of my company.
One driver gets its own index because buyers calculate it separately: to what extent the company revolves around the owner personally. At a manufacturing company with 80 employees, this can mean that the owner still manages the largest customer relationships and is the only one who approves pricing for new orders. At a service provider with 150 employees, it can lie in knowledge that is not documented anywhere, so that the company becomes a different company without that person. The index converts this into a score, not a judgment — that score then carries through into the range, and into what a buyer is willing to pay after acquisition once the owner is no longer present. How this dependency is concretely reduced is set out on the page about how do I become less dependent as an owner.
A scan produces an indicative range with the sensitivity per driver, not a fixed figure and not a valuation. That distinction is not a minor nuance: a valuation calculates a value based on fixed methods and is signed by an expert, while a scan shows which drivers push the range up or down and how sensitive the outcome is to change in each driver. For a company with a broadly spread customer base and a strong management team, the range is generally narrower than for a company where one customer or one person carries a large share of the revenue or knowledge — not because the scan decides so, but because buyers price in that uncertainty. The sensitivity analysis per driver shows which change has the greatest effect on the outcome, making clear what the range depends on.
At a trading company with 120 employees, the scan might show, for example, that customer concentration and owner dependency are the two drivers that push the range down the most, while margin development and growth direction score above average. That combination gives a different picture than a single average: it shows what the range depends on and which driver has the greatest effect on the outcome if it changes. For a director who is only considering a sale in about five years, that is different information than for someone who has a conversation with a buyer in six months — which in turn connects to the question of when should you start preparing for a sale.
A first indication per driver can be obtained through the free test 'how buyer-ready are you': eight questions that give an indication per value driver, without requiring a full report for that. Anyone who, after that indication, wants to know how the eight drivers and the owner dependency index concretely translate into a range can go through the full scan, and anyone who wants to know how the company is structurally positioned will find the starting point on the page about how do I make my company sale-ready.
Owner dependency and the quality of management information are essentially a question of tasks: who does what, and what happens to it if that person is no longer there. Which tasks can be transferred to an employee or to AI, and which remain inextricably tied to the owner, is mapped out by the work scan on ftetoai.com.