Strategy
Where to play, how to win, and what to stop doing — carried through to the budget.
Plan. Position. Win.
Strategy
Discipline 03 of 06
A strategy that never reaches an operating plan is a document. The work is not finished when the direction is agreed; it is finished when the calendar, the budget and the incentives all point the same way.
Discuss a strategy engagementWhat it covers
The work
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01
Market and position
Where the business genuinely has an advantage, and where it is competing on someone else's terms.
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02
Growth and capital allocation
Which lines earn the next pound of investment, and which have been earning it out of habit.
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03
Operating model
The structure, roles and decision rights the strategy assumes — usually the part that quietly fails.
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04
Exit and endgame
What the business is being built toward, and what that requires to be true three years out.
Method
How we work on it
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01
Start from the economics
Segment profitability before market narrative. A strategy built on revenue rather than contribution is a plan to grow the wrong things.
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02
Name the trade-offs
A strategy that requires nothing to be given up is a wish list. We make the stop-doing list explicit and get it agreed.
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03
Land it in the plan
Every conclusion is carried into the budget, the operating calendar and someone's objectives, or it does not survive the quarter.
Alongside
Read with the other disciplines
Start here
Talk to us about strategy
Describe the decision in front of you. You will get a considered reply and a straight answer about whether this is work we should be doing.