WHAT WE DO

Our business unit strategy approach focuses on driving a specific business to full economic potential. Whether through an annual planning process, a transformation effort or full turnaround. Such efforts are all about making strategic choices and driving change. The ultimate goal is to rapidly create a proprietary set of actions that serve customers better than the competition.

Only few companies achieves sustainable profitable growth. And of those sustained value creators, 90% lead in their core business. Our business unit strategy approach focuses on achieving full economic potential of the core business and pursuing adjacencies with ruthless discipline, with an eye toward mobilization to ensure our clients convert their strategy into realized results. We work with clients to develop a robust strategic foundation, make choices on where to play and how to build a competitive advantage, and establish flexible priorities that drive results at the front line.

What makes a good strategy?

• Strategic Foundation. A robust fact base that drives strategic insights and builds the case for change. Establishes the baseline for business boundaries, rules of the game and competitive position, customer insights and future outlook.
• Ambition. A bold, inspiring, full potential ambition that drives sustained profitable growth. Defines what the company aims to achieve over a given time horizon, balancing stretch goals.
• Where to Play. Clear choices on where to play: which markets and segments the company will pursue and which it will not. Focusing first on growth from the core, expanding through adjacencies where appropriate, and redefining the core when needed.
• How to Win. Clear choices on how to win: which differentiated management capabilities, operating capabilities and proprietary assets the company will use. Leveraging repeatable models to improve the odds of success.
• ExpertActions’s unique approach to business unit strategy overcomes the shortfalls of the typical strategy development process, which focuses on getting to recommendations more than results. In the typical process, substantial time and effort are invested in developing a static fact base and recommendations, with relatively less emphasis on dynamic action planning and execution. The outcome is a strategy that falls into one or more classic strategy pitfalls: it’s not tailored to a company’s specific capabilities and position; it’s too incremental; it’s not scalable; it’s not implementable; it’s not durable; or it’s just plain wrong.
• We use several lenses to help our clients develop creative and innovative strategies. Ideas may be generated from an assessment of changes in the "rules of the game," differentiation via new competitive models, new trends, deep consumer insight, the application of sustainable business practices, the expansion of repeatable models and the mining of underutilized assets or platforms, or hidden assets.
• ExpertActions's approach is geared to rapid results by considering options and mobilization efforts early in the process, and leveraging quick wins to build momentum. Critical to this process is communicating early to key stakeholders to ensure buy-in and effective feedback loops that allow management to monitor execution. Mobilization efforts include evaluating challenges to implementation and results by addressing risks, constraints, people and capability gaps from the beginning of the strategy process.
• We help clients develop dynamic decision-making capabilities, which aid strategy development during uncertainty. Scenarios are developed by extrapolating macro, industry and competitive trends to determine likely end states. However, since the expected scenario may not be the one that plays out, organizations also need a process to develop robust and adaptable strategies, to monitor actual scenario outcomes and to accommodate course corrections as needed.
• We share our clients' ambitions. We work to understand their reality and deliver true results—focusing on strategic decisions and practical actions. And we align our incentives with our clients' objectives, so they know we're in it together.
• New products propel profitability for metals manufacturer - Following the purchase of a finishing plant, our industrial goods client experienced a steep decline in sales. After adopting our recommendation to focus on new products and cut losses in a losing product line, our client's profits quadrupled.
• Hospital turnaround stems doctor defections - Our hospital client stemmed the tide of physician defections and turned around financial results by devising a new strategy that focused on strategic market segments.
• Review focuses biotech on portfolio potential - ExpertActions helped this biotech client perform a comprehensive portfolio review that resulted in clear recommendations to refocus resources on projects with the highest potential