CONSULTING METHODOLOGIES
Every business unit needs a strategy, laying out an action plan for how they will be creating competitive advantage in the future.
These questions will ensure that you craft your strategy with a 360 degree perspective:
I Executive Summary
[Summarise the key components of the strategy]
- Our diagnosis – what is the nature of our challenge
- Our strategy – how we are going to overcome the challenge
- The key actions (initiatives) we are going to take to implement our strategy
II What is our current strategic situation?
- How does our industry work? [Tool: See Industry Analysis]
- What is the structure of our industry?
- How do you make money in our industry?
- How is our industry changing?
- How are industry boundaries breaking down?
- How are customers changing?
- How are segments changing?
- What is the new basis of competition in each segment?
- How do we compare to our competitors? [Tool: See Competitive Analysis]
- Who are our competitors?
- What are their strategies?
- How can we respond to their strategies and tactics?
- How are we positioned in our Product/Markets? [Tool: Portfolio framework, e.g. BCG Matrix]
- What is our financial performance?
- Where do we currently make money?(products, countries and customer segments)?
- What are the financial trends? What part of our business are increasing/decreasing in profitability? Why?
- Where are we currently allocating our resources? How does this compare with profitability? What return on investment have we seen over the last 3 years?
- How do our costs compare with competitors? [Tool – competitive cost benchmarking]
- What have we learnt over the last 12 months?
- What have we learnt about our customers? How are we taking these insights into action?
- What exceeded our expectations? Why?
- What fell short of our expectations? Why?
- What new assumptions have we tested? What were the results?
- What were the results of our pilots/new ventures?
- How have we performed against our strategic KPIs?
- Summary
- What are the key trends? What do we expect to be the future business environment?
- What different growth opportunities do we have?
- What are our top 5 strategic issues?
III What is our strategy?
- Where will we compete? (What is our Product/Market strategy?)
- Who will be our target customers? (Target customer = we will design our business to serve these customers better than anyone else in the world)
- Who will we serve, but we will not design our business to serve them
- Who will we not sell to?
- What will be our core product and service range?
- What is not core, but we will also sell to support sales of our core products and services?
- What will we not sell?
- What markets (geographies or industries) will we compete in?
- What channels will we sell through?
- What channels will we not sell through?
- What are our product/market priorities?
- Which product/market segments will we attack? (Attack = invest to grow market share)
- Which product/market segments will we defend? (Defend = maintain market share)
- Which product/market share are we prepared to lose share?
- What are our financial goals (share, sales, profit) by product/market unit?
- What are our resource allocation priorities? (P&L, R&D, Capex, Talent)
- Who will be our target customers? (Target customer = we will design our business to serve these customers better than anyone else in the world)
- What will be our value proposition? (customer perspective – why customers buy from us)
- How will we deliver this value proposition better than any competitor?
- What will be our competitive advantage?
- Resources?
- Core Capabilities/Processes?
- Culture/Values?
- How will our supporting functions (e.g. HR, IT, finance) contribute to our value proposition?
- What will be our competitive advantage?
- What is our vision?
- What is the deeper purpose of our company?
- What are our unchanging core values?
- What is our BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)?
- What is the vivid description of our future?
- What alternative strategies are possible? Why is our chosen one best? What were the criteria?
IV What is our plan to execute this strategy?
- What action do we need to take to execute this strategy?
- Where are we today?
- Where are the gaps between where we are and our future strategy?
- Product/Markets/Businesses
- Capabilities
- Infrastructure (e.g. IT)
- Culture
- Where are the objectives of each of these strategic initiatives?
- Which gaps should we fill organically and which through acquisition?
- How will we drive these strategic initiatives?
- Have we created resource/time for our strategic initiatives by cancelling less important projects?
- Have we ruthlessly prioritized our strategic initiatives? [Tool: Impact/Ease framework]
- What does our portfolio of strategic initiatives look like? [Tool: Initiative Portfolio matrix]
- By timescale – short/medium/long term
- Types of innovation – product, process, marketing, business models, organisation
- Have we set up each of our strategic initiatives for success?
- Who will lead each of our key initiatives?
- Have we created accountable plans?
- Have we resourced these plans?
- Have we thought through the implementation issues will we encounter, and how will we overcome them?
- How will we monitor our progress?
- What are our Strategic KPIs? [Tool: Balanced Scorecard]
- What are the key quarterly milestones for our strategic initiatives?
- What are the key events/triggers we need to monitor?
- What competitive intelligence system do we have in place?
- How will we align our organization with our strategy?
- What Catalytic Mechanisms have we created?
- How will we change our culture? From what To what?
- What changes will we need to make in our organisational structure?
- How will we communicate our strategy?
- What stories will bring it alive for our front line?
Consulting Toolkit 