STRATEGY

Navigating to future success

As many as 20% of businesses fail to achieve their ambitions and growth targets in revenue and profitability.

Many Strategies…

..lack differentiation: all competitors converge on similar strategies and compete in similar ways
..aren’t actionable: the strategy sounds ok on paper but isn’t actionable and does not consider a portfolio of opportunities in and outside of the core business
..aren’t engaging: difficult to align people behind the strategy if there’s no compelling purpose for people to be excited about
..cannot cope with uncertainty: they are seen as detailed implementation plans and don’t include learning about the choices made

Introducing a Future Back approach

We have re-invented how to develop growth strategies that are future focused, engaging and built on a strong foundation of actionable business opportunities. Instead of extrapolating from the past to the present into the future (strategic fit) we apply a “Future Back” approach to strategy that was first described by our founder Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad in their groundbreaking book “Competing for the Future”.

This approach leads to a more ambitious strategy and introduces stretch that drives a higher level of innovation performance. Over the past 25 years we have refined and battle tested this approach with dozens of clients.

Key elements of our approach

We engage leaders on developing a shared perspective of the future
Identify drivers of change and their impact on our business
Understand our core competencies and how they can be leveraged
Challenge our thinking on company and industry conventions that can lead to disruption
Identify opportunities for growth in our core business, adjacencies and white spaces
Define how we will play to win in current and future markets
Develop multiple pathways and clear plans to achieve our goals

A strategy allocates resources to a coherent set of opportunities that we believe will help us grow the business and transform it over time based on a shared point of view that drives our choices.

Getting to action

The gap between strategy definition and implementation can be significant and unless addressed appropriately leads to poor results. Throughout the strategy development process we engage a variety of stakeholders who will be involved in leading elements of implementation.

Execute structured engagement to present the case for change and align the organization
Allocate resources to a portfolio of opportunities and innovation projects to achieve the future state growth strategy
Plan and implement the required changes to policies, processes, capabilities, competences, go to market approaches, and organization

Benefits from this approach

Most businesses develop a high level strategy and then on a much shorter cycle define a strategic plan. We synchronize this long term horizon with a short term focus through migration management.
Advantages of this approach are:

Visibility of the underlying assumptions so that vulnerabilities can be monitored and managed
Time-phased change model to make steady progress toward your chosen future identity
Robustness to respond to unanticipated changes, such as a severe economic downturn without abandoning a sound strategy

Get in touch with us

Learn more about Growth Strategy. Watch this webinar.