Strategic planning is a management process for evaluating your current business, determining your strategic direction, and laying out a roadmap of strategic initiatives.
Our Approach to Strategy Consulting
Our approach is collaborative, forming a team with key leaders within the client’s organization, and developing the business strategy in five main phases.
Baseline Assessment: Together, we reaffirm the organization’s mission, vision, and values, establishing a strategic context. Our strategy consultants also evaluate the current situation in terms of internal factors (financial, operational, products, customers, and supply chain), external factors (market, industry, competition), opportunities, and threats.
Formulation: Using a variety of facilitation tools, our management consultants collaborate with the team to formulate the strategic vision, value proposition, competitive differentiation, and strategic alternatives (e.g. develop a capability vs. make an acquisition). This phase includes development of the high level “strategic story,” a strategic narrative that is powerful, compelling, and easy to remember.
Specification: Our strategy consultants now develop the strategy in more detail in terms of objectives, a three to five year road map, and key metrics.
Planning: Now the strategy must be fleshed out in terms of strategic growth initiatives along with detailed plans for each functional area. In this phase, we also build the business case and along with budgetary requests.
Execution: Carrying out the strategic plan includes assigning responsibility for each initiative, program/project management, and organizational change management. Our execution services are described in more detail on our website.