Hilltop’s tag line is “Transforming organizations through skillful alignment of vision, people, process and technology solutions.” Our team understands that a business strategy must have alignment of these business components or else it is likely to fail. Further, Hilltop understands your business and has worked with many clients – some of which are strategic and all operations are aligned, others that are not aligned at all. Some strategy firms claim they know your business but have never worked within the industry and cannot identify how to align the “big white board ideas” with the business operations.
Defining a business strategy that is effective and by design can be aligned with the business operations requires the strategy to be:
- easy to explain what the strategy will do to meet very clear stated vision, goals, and objectives (what will the strategy achieve?),
- has clear and measurable rewards for successfully meeting the goals (will know when it is a success),
- is not too controversial (all employees can support at least part of the strategy),
- it must involve a longer-term plan of action (not the old 5 year plans but not 3 months either),
- the strategy has strong foundational elements (assumptions) that the Company will build upon (strengths of the company – people, process, technology, product, etc.), and
- there is a clear strategy design (i.e. at the “plumbing level”) that shows how to implement such.
If your company’s strategy cannot meet these criteria, a “refresh” review of the strategy is a good idea.
A strategy framework is management’s “overall game plan” for enhancing the performance and positioning the Company to be more competitive, while meeting the customer’s needs. While individual strategies are then established to address the various aspects of the overall game plan, each strategy must be integrated with the other strategies in order to be successful.
Hilltop’s business strategy consulting is not “pie in the sky” or “white boarding business ideas that cannot be implemented”. We work with clients to review and refresh their business strategy to ensure that they meet the baseline requirements of a strategy and given our knowledge of the business – provide feedback on whether the strategy will produce targeted the business enhancements.
Hilltop views the details of a strategy to be very important. Here are some of the many detailed questions to be answered when we help review a strategy:
- Who is the target customer?
- What is the value proposition to that customer?
- What are the essential capabilities needed to deliver that value proposition?
- Can the company grow?
- Is there value in growing i.e. is it profitable or does it meet a customer objective?
- What is the demand to support the growth?
- Can your company grow by taking market share?
- How do you attract millennials to use your company?
- What is the company’s market share? Market position?
- Does brand awareness matter?
- What is the target profitability?
- How does the company achieve such in a competitive market?
- Do customers perceive the company’s services positively?
- Are the Company’s business processes efficient – cost, timely, high quality, compliant, etc.?
- Is technology expected to provide a competitive advantage and if so – how?
- Is the Company a leader or a follower in the market?
- Where should your company “play” in the market?
- How can your company “win” over its competition?
- What will help your company to be “nimble” to react to market and customer changes?
Ultimately, the strategy is the road map to meeting your vision, goals and objectives, while also answering in practical terms how your company differentiates itself from competitors, how it earns revenues, and what business earns the best profit margins.