Unlocking Next Year’s Success This Year: The Power of Strategic Planning Consultants

Strategic planning has become more crucial than ever due to the complex nature of business, regulation and geopolitical considerations. Companies of all sizes should recognize the need for expert guidance to navigate complex challenges and take advantage of opportunities that exist in their marketplace. Using a seasoned Strategic Planning consultant who can offer invaluable expertise, and a proven process will free up your organization to chart a course that will unlock next year’s success as well as the future success of the company regardless of its strategic objectives.

Why Strategic Planning Matters

Strategic planning is the cornerstone of long-term business success and sustainability. It provides a roadmap for achieving business and organizational goals, aligning resources, and adapting to changing market conditions. However, many companies struggle to develop and implement effective strategies on their own. This is supported by the following statistics:

• 95% of a company’s employees are unaware of, or do not understand its strategy.
• 60% of companies do a poor job executing their strategy. 
• 85% of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing their unit’s strategy, with 50% spending no time at all.  
• 60% of organizations don’t link their financial budgets to strategic priorities.
• 99% of companies don’t have a Most Important Goal – MIG, or fully understand their value proposition.
• 80% of the digital transformation and industrial transformation fail.

If you are not convinced by these numbers, consider the following chart that outlines strategic maturity.

Get together with your team and identify where your company is regarding the strategic maturity continuum.  If you are in the red or yellow zones, these statistics apply to you, and you will want to do something about the process you are following.

Effective strategic planning consulting service providers have the frameworks, methodologies and tools that can make a significant difference in these numbers, because they work with leadership teams and the company’s stakeholders to address these issues, ensuring long term success, sustainability and strategic maturity.

The Role of Strategic Planning Consultants

Strategic planning consultants are experts in facilitating leadership teams and organizations in the development and execution of comprehensive strategies. They bring a wealth of experience, industry knowledge, and proven methodologies such as the Business Hierarchy of Needs^® the “Where To Play” and “How to Win” framework and a strategic planning playbook to the table. These professionals work closely with executive teams to:

1. Be holistic
2. Analyze current business performance and market position
3. Identify key marketplace issues that the company needs to address
4. Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats across the business:
   1. In the marketplace
   2. Product portfolios
   3. Supply Chains (By the way, every business has one)
   4. The organizational structure
   5. Market facing capabilities – Market Effectiveness
   6. Technology backbone
   7. Business processes
5. Identify unserved whitespace in the marketplace
6. Develop clear, actionable strategic goals
7. Create detailed implementation plans and roadmaps
8. Evaluate the capabilities of the leadership team to implement the defined business strategies.
9. Create a robust change management program
10. Establish metrics for measuring progress and success

Benefits of Hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant

Engaging a strategic planning consultant can yield numerous benefits for your organization:

1. Objective, holistic perspective: Consultants provide an unbiased view of your business, helping to identify blind spots and challenge assumptions.
2. Expertise and best practices: Access to industry-specific knowledge and proven strategic frameworks.
3. Facilitation of difficult conversations: Skilled consultants can navigate sensitive topics and build consensus among leadership teams.
4. Time and resource efficiency: Streamlined process for strategy development and implementation allowing the leadership team to focus on strategy and not process.
5. Accountability and follow-through: Ongoing support to ensure strategy execution and adjustment as needed.

How to Choose the Right Strategic Planning Consultant

Consultants, Accounting firms and a host of other people will tell you that they do strategic planning consulting. Not everyone of them is created equal, and most do not have the ability to work with you throughout planning and implementation. Many of them do not have the breadth of experience or the subject matter experts on their teams to do it right. Strategic planning, in and of itself can be straightforward, but strategic execution is a complex choreograph of activities that impacts the entire enterprise. When hiring a strategic planning consultant, carefully consider the following factors:

1. Industry experience: Look for consultants with relevant expertise in your sector.
2. Methodology: Ensure their approach aligns with your organization’s culture and needs. Make sure they have the proper frameworks and supporting materials to do the job.
3. Track record: Ask for case studies and references from past clients who have similar strategic challenges to yours.
4. Team dynamics: Evaluate how well the consultant and their supporting experts will work with your leadership team.
5. Customization: Seek a consultant who tailors their approach to your specific situation.
6. Make sure the consultant has the skills and the bench strength to work with your team on strategy execution as well.

Making the right decision regarding a strategic planning consultant is critical to the outcome. Take your time and make sure that you and your team are comfortable with the strategic planning experts you choose. You can read more on this topic here.

The Strategic Planning Process

There are as many strategic planning methodologies as there are colors. Each strategic planning firm and likely, the members of your leadership team have done it in various ways. It is also likely that you have a process you use in your business.  A typical strategic planning engagement involves several key phases:

1. Discovery and analysis: Gathering data on the organization’s current state and market environment.
2. Strategy formulation: Developing high-level strategic goals and initiatives.
3. Action planning: Creating detailed implementation plans and assigning responsibilities.
4. Alignment and Accountability: Reaching agreement between all leaders on the strategies and objectives as well as being accountable to them.
5. Cascading Objectives: Developing supporting tactics and assigning responsibilities throughout the organization, making sure that everyone knows what their role is in achieving strategic success. This is a critical part of strategic maturity.
6. Execution support: Providing ongoing guidance and monitoring progress utilizing a proven set of strategy execution tools.
7. Review and adjustment: Regularly assessing strategy effectiveness and making necessary changes.

Whatever process you use, make sure it thoroughly covers these 7 aspects. As you discuss your existing process or a suggested new process, always ask yourself how this process is going to lead you to strategic maturity and deal with the statistics that were outlined earlier in this article. Years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Business Processes are Like Old Laws, They Never Go Away”. In it, I discuss how leadership teams are reticent to change what they believe are working for them. The reality is that every process can be improved, and you and your leadership team should consider making strategic planning process changes that best suit your needs.

Maximizing the Value of Strategic Planning Consulting

To get the most out of your engagement with a strategic planning consultant:

1. Be open and transparent about your organization’s challenges and goals. There should be one Most Important Goal that all stakeholders are focused on.
2. Involve key stakeholders throughout the process to ensure buy-in and alignment.
3. Commit to implementing the agreed-upon strategies and action plans.
4. Establish clear metrics for measuring success and hold regular review sessions.
5. View the consultant as a partner in your organization’s long-term success.

Conclusion

Strategic planning is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. By partnering with experienced strategic planning consultants, organizations can develop robust strategies, improve decision-making, and position themselves for sustainable growth and significant improvements in financial performance. Remember that strategic planning is about value creation for the company’s stakeholders. Whether you’re a small business looking to scale or a large corporation aiming to maintain market leadership, investing in strategic planning consulting services can be a game-changer for your organization’s future. But, planning is only the first part and companies should be equally focused on execution of those strategies. One without the other will not generate a successful outcome.

FAQs

1. What is Strategic Planning Consulting?
   Strategic Planning Consulting is a service provided by experts who help organizations develop and implement comprehensive strategies for achieving long-term goals and financial success.
2. Why is Strategic Planning important for my business?
   Strategic Planning is crucial for setting clear direction, aligning resources, adapting to market changes, and ensuring long-term sustainability and growth with a focus on value creation. As Yogi Bera once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will end up someplace else”.
3. What services do Strategic Planning Consultants provide?
   Strategic Planning Consultants offer services including market analysis, strategy formulation, action planning, implementation support, change management, and performance monitoring. They use proven frameworks and methodologies for the development and implementation of strategy.
4. How do Strategic Planning Consultants work with my team?
   Consultants collaborate closely with leadership teams, facilitating discussions, providing expert insights, and guiding the strategy development and execution process. They also work with other key stakeholders to ensure that they understand their role in strategic success. A full-service consulting firm will work with the company during the execution of its business strategies which provides sustainable results. A full-service firm will also have a full suite of implementation tools and be the company’s bench strength to fill in subject matter gaps during implementation.
5. What are the benefits of hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant?
   There are many benefits to hiring a strategic planning consultant. They include, but are not limited to the following:
   1.  Gaining an objective perspective
   2. Accessing industry expertise
   3. Improving decision-making
   4. Enhancing strategy execution and accountability
   5. Effective facilitation
   6. Supporting the company in strategic execution: ie. Implementing the plan during your strategic planning horizon.
   7. Transferring skills, methodologies and frameworks to your team.
6. What are some common outcomes of a successful Strategic Planning process?
   Common outcomes include clearer organizational direction, improved resource allocation, better alignment across teams, increased stakeholder engagement across the entire enterprise, increased adaptability,  improved overall performance and increased enterprise value.

Schedule a Meeting with our Subject Matter Expert

About the Author: Jim Gitney is the founder and CEO of Group50 Consulting, a member of the board of advisers for thinaer and the author of “Strategy Realized – The Business Hierarchy of Needs^®”.   Jim is a strategy, operations and supply chain subject matter expert in manufacturing and distribution. He has been an Executive Chairman, Board Member, CEO, COO and had other assignments in business development, marketing, sales, and operations.  He has hands-on experience working in over a dozen different industries, with over 200 clients. He has led 11 operational and financial restructurings during his career. He and his team have delivered over $400M in annual savings to his clients’ bottom line. Group50’s work focuses on the intersection of people process and technology in manufacturing and distribution with middle market companies. Projects Group50 has worked on generally provide a 10x ROI.

Jim has over 30 years’ experience in world class companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies including GE, Black & Decker, Sunbeam, Rain Bird and Pankl Aerospace.  He has extensive experience in running large global operations and working with boards, business owners and executives on developing and implementing transformative strategic initiatives including mergers and acquisitions, integration, business process engineering and sustainable continuous improvement initiatives.

Founded in 2004, Group50®consulting is focused on working with middle market companies to significantly improve their business performance by leveraging people, process and technology as part of a company’s strategic plan. Strategic planning, Lean Business, Lean Manufacturing, business process improvement and process reengineering are Group50® specialties. Group50® consists of consultants who have spent their careers in corporate America learning how to optimize businesses.  We specialize in working with senior leaders to develop and implement programs that leverage people, process and technology to optimize business performance.

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