Strategy Consultant
Our role is to empower our clients, giving them the tools and knowledge to define their strategic paths and future vision. We guide them in executing concrete steps to achieve these goals, fostering a collaborative journey that builds understanding, unifies leadership, and drives action. This empowerment instills a sense of control and confidence in our clients, knowing they are making informed and strategic decisions.
Execution
Virtual-Strategy office
Operational Excellence is not a Strategy
Executive Coaching and Guidance
Objective
What Challenge(s) do Our Clients Face?
- In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, companies must prioritize strategy to thrive in constant innovation and change. One thing is sure: change is constant. The strategy entails anticipating future scenarios and positioning yourself to make proactive changes with strategic foresight.
- "The future is unpredictable, and managers often overestimate their ability to plan it precisely. In the flexible approach, managers observe changes and adjust their strategy, but this requires having a strategy in place and implementing it through strategic planning."
- Believing that operational excellence is a strategy. Please read it loudly for yourself: Operational excellence is not a strategy. It's necessary to compete, but not enough to win. The more benchmarking you do, the more you look alike. Operational effectiveness is achieving excellence in each activity, while strategy combines activities.
- "Strategy is aimless without execution, and Execution is useless without a strategy." The strategic planning and management framework follows top- down objectives supported by bottom-up initiatives. The cascade methodology connects strategic objectives to employees at the operational level.
- "Companies using benchmark strategic planning can achieve 2x business growth compared to competitors. Strategic planning and performance management involve top-down and bottom-up initiatives to develop coherent organizations."
- Short-term challenges can lead a business to lose sight of its medium- and long-term goals, putting its growth potential at risk. Strategic planning is an effective way to help top management delegate their workload while still holding the organization accountable.
- Functional silos and bureaucracy are typical in many companies. Organizations invest in training and leadership activities to drive change but often struggle to succeed. One major challenge is the dominance of functional strategy over corporate strategy. Functional strategies should complement corporate strategy, not overshadow it.
What are the Benefits to Our Clients?
Our comprehensive Strategy consulting services are designed to provide your company with a holistic approach to strategic management. By bridging the gap between strategic thinking and delivering results, i.e., execution, we can help you achieve your desired strategy objectives and drive your company’s growth.
- Strategy formulation – Vision, mission, core values, strategic goals, and translating goals into initiatives using balanced scorecard methodologies.
- End-to-end Strategic Planning and Management: You can oversee your strategy office, serve as a strategic advisor, and provide strategic direction without hiring a senior executive.
- Act as a strategic advisor to business and function leaders, providing data- driven insights to help drive decision-making, prioritize initiatives, and establish partnerships across business units to support growth initiatives.
How Does it Work?
- Establish strategy planning and management practices with our customized and cost-effective advisory services to achieve your business objectives swiftly. Identify and seize opportunities aligned with your specific needs.
- We also provide comprehensive Virtual Chief Strategy Office Services. We work remotely to deliver strategic guidance, oversee business strategy implementation, and monitor progress. This cost-effective solution gives you access to high-level expertise without needing a full-time executive.
- Strategic Choices need to be cascaded methodologically for effective execution.
- The cascade framework allows strategy to be created and refined at every organizational level, whether using the Balanced Scorecard or the Play-to-Win framework.
- Merely having a detailed plan doesn't guarantee a sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic thinking and management are prerequisites for effective planning. Despite popular belief, a long-term strategy is feasible and can be a competitive advantage.
- A successful strategy is a thoughtfully chosen combination of decisions that positions a company for success. It's all about achieving a strategic objective, in other words, winning.
- The “Play to Win” framework encompasses five strategic choices.
- Vision (winning aspiration).
- Where to compete in products, segments, geography, channels, value chain, and where to play (Where to compete).
- Unique Value proposition backed by solid competitive advantage (how to win).
- Set of resources that deliver value proposition and strengthen the competitive advantages (core capabilities).
- The performance management model that wheels the organization smoothly (differential management systems).
- Strategy execution is not just a step in the process but the ultimate key to success. With effective strategy execution, all planning becomes valuable. Our execution Roadmap is the most critical aspect of strategy execution, and it requires our collective focus and determination to achieve our strategic goals.
Why Choose Us?
Strategy that “Organizational Fit”
Business Partner Collaboration
Cross-Functional Planning Expertise
Execution Support
“Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.” Most organizations fail in execution. The entire organization needs to apply a similar scientific approach to what operational excellence has brought to the operations.
How Can We Improve Our Strategic Thinking?
Strategy Flow
One fundamental understanding in developing a successful strategy is that the process is iterative and involves making choices to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, rather than crafting the perfect definition of winning, it is important to sketch a prototype with the knowledge that it will be refined later.
To make good decisions, one must understand the environment’s complexity.
- Understand the industry and its segments.
- Focus on understanding one's customers.
- Evaluate one's capabilities and costs relative to the competition.
- Consider competition; what will my competitors do in the face of my actions?
There are four dimensions you need to think about to choose where to compete and offer and deliver the value proposition:
- Industry: What is the structure of your industry and the attractiveness of its segments?
- Customers: What do your channel and end customers value?
- Relative position: How does your company fare in terms of price and cost, and how could it fare relative to the competition?
- Competition: What will your competition do in reaction to your chosen course of action?
How Can We Improve Our Strategic Planning?
Strategic Planning Framework
- Facilitates strategic decision-making about customer groups and resources across organizational boundaries.
- A planning process that stimulates entrepreneurial thinking.
- A corporate value system that reinforces managers’ commitment to the company’s strategy.
Phase I: Basic Financial Planning
Companies use a formal planning system for the budgeting process, which involves forecasting revenue, costs, and capital needs and setting annual expense budgets. Information systems track functional performance against budgetary targets.
Phase II: Forecast-Based Planning.
Phase III: Externally Oriented Planning
In a rapidly changing environment, market forecasts can quickly become obsolete. Planners often lose faith in forecasting and focus instead on understanding the key drivers of change, which can lead to a new level of planning effectiveness, Phase III.
Phase IV: Strategic Management
Phase IV unifies strategic planning and management into a single process. Only a select few companies are being managed strategically. These companies face the monumental challenge of serving many businesses, products, and markets in various national environments. Sophisticated and highly effective planning by these companies signifies that strategic management can generate a significant positive impact.
How Can We Improve Execution?
Enterprise Performance Management
Performance management is crucial for businesses to succeed. It aligns employees, resources, and systems with strategic goals. Companies that excel in performance management become formidable competitors. A robust system creates metrics and targets at all levels, rewarding good performance while addressing any underperformance.
For instance, much of GE’s successful transformation under former CEO Jack Welch was attributed to his ability to get the company’s 250,000 employees “pulling in the same direction”—and pulling to the best of their abilities. As Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Components of EPM
Strategy to Plan
Achieving business goals covers long-term planning and short-term
resource allocation, including risk and performance measures.
- Strategic modeling and value-driver analysis
- Key performance and risk metric definition
- Cascading metrics to functions, teams, and individuals
- Integrating business planning to individual planning to individual objective setting
- Long-range planning
- Defining data needed for the budget and the best process
Measure to Forecast
Forecasting is assessing the business’s health by analyzing its performance against critical metrics defined in the strategy.
- Financial (statutory), management, and regulatory reporting
- Industry/Function-specific analysis (e.g., profitability & cost analysis, cash flow forecasting)
- Process standardization automation/ acceleration
- Reorganization to make use of standard reporting tools and processes
- Data model design and data management
Recognize to Reward
It is crucial to link the delivery of essential metrics outlined in the strategy with individuals’ performance management plans.
- Define and align employee’s performance to business performance.
- Benchmarking of reward for market competitiveness
- Alignment of learning and development programs to performance
Coaching and Competence Focus
Our unwavering focus on coaching and developing competence underscores our commitment to helping our clients achieve sustainable business results. We believe that meticulous execution and an unyielding dedication to improvement are paramount. We offer comprehensive supportive services to ensure our clients thrive, including personalized business coaching, tailored competency development, hands-on process support, adequate tool support, and customized mentoring. We aim to empower our clients to attain and maintain their desired outcomes, ensuring their long-term success and prosperity.
We have developed a module that considers business needs and executive working styles.
- We begin with Fundamental training in Strategic planning and management. The planning framework is a foundational one. For ex. The organization's sales target will be broken down into products and regions. Then, it further aligns with the salespeople's target. Any gap in target setting will eventually fail to achieve the result. Even salespeople need to plan their target to the customer channel. Moreover, benchmark practice is to granularity the target into base or core business (Bread and butter) and new business. This breakdown essentially helps to strategize how to achieve each element. The base business strategy could have different priorities, and significant project orders must be explicitly addressed, as the customer base is different.
- We add the necessary competency-building workshop, such as tracking the targets. Believe us, tracking weekly targets is the benchmark practice. All this leads to the basic foundation established in the planning and execution competency, which is a valued competency.
- We offer tools to use, improve, and use for regular analysis and insights. Many times, different companies have specific requirements. We can guide your team in developing those tools. Tools built in Excel are an excellent beginning. Once the understanding and processes reach proficiency levels, automation, and software systems can enhance their value.
- During the assignment, we encourage your team to take some initiatives and projects under our supervision. That will be an excellent chance to showcase and apply their recently enhanced competence to the company's requirements. We review their performance and guide them toward continuous improvement.
- We wish to take key personnel mentoring. We hope what we deliver to clients will be sustainable in the medium to long term. Many times, mentoring key personnel helps keep that momentum. We identify them as super users. Super users are responsible for mastering specific skill sets and internally training others. This is the benchmark method where the company can internalize the competence building without frequently hiring an external advisor.
How Do We Serve Our Clients?
Frequently Asked Questions
The role of a Strategy Consultant is to review an organization’s business practices and assist in implementing goals to optimize the business strategy. Combining analysis and creativity involves developing a vital strategic plan and decision-making. Strategic management is also crucial, as it defines an organization’s goals and effectively oversees the initiatives to achieve them.
A Strategy Consultant is brought into an organization due to their expert strategy knowledge. Their role involves reviewing an organization’s business practices and implementing goals to optimize its strategy. Strategic thinking combines analysis and creativity to develop a vital strategic plan and decision-making. Strategic planning turns potential strategy into an integrated actionable plan. Strategic management involves defining an organization’s goals and overseeing the initiatives to achieve them effectively. Executing the plan is the most critical aspect of achieving strategic objectives. Without strategy, execution is aimless, and without execution, strategy is useless.
Organizations utilize strategy consultants for various purposes, such as formulating strategy (vision, mission, values, translating goals into initiatives), engaging in comprehensive strategic planning and management (providing strategic advice and direction), and acting as strategic advisors to business and function leaders (offering insights to prioritize initiatives in support of growth initiatives).
Strategy consultants play a critical role in helping organizations achieve their goals. Developing a successful strategy involves thoroughly analyzing external forces and competitors’ activities and conducting an impartial internal evaluation to assess internal performance and strategic influences. The subsequent steps of strategy formulation, planning, and execution, with strategy consultants guiding the way, pave the way for driving business growth and achieving organizational goals.
Strategy consultants offer services related to strategy formulation, which involves defining the vision, mission, and core values, setting strategic goals, and translating these goals into actionable initiatives. They utilize balanced scorecard methodologies and end-to-end strategic planning for a comprehensive approach. The Product Portfolio Strategy is based on the BCG Growth-Market Share Matrix, a strategic planning tool that helps allocate resources among business units or product lines. Strategy consultants understand that every business is unique and needs tailored solutions. Whether facing market shifts, new competitors, or changing customer preferences, they can help companies navigate challenges and seize new opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Virtual-Strategy OfficeA dedicated CSO is highly recommended, as this role and other vital positions form a strong team that drives an organization toward success. Every organization has resource constraints and needs to manage its costs effectively to support the business. Virtual CSO services offer precisely that without hiring a senior executive. They act as a virtual business partner to provide essential skills, offering a cost-effective solution to valuable strategic management.
The CEO, CFO, CTO, and COO are crucial. Similarly, the CSO’s (Chief Strategy Officer) role is also essential. The CSO is responsible for strategic thinking, formulation, and execution, connecting strategic objectives with financial outcomes. A dedicated CSO is highly recommended, as this role and other vital positions form a strong team that drives an organization toward success. Virtual CSO services offer a cost- effective solution by providing essential skills without hiring a senior executive.
