The Necessity of Changing the Strategy Conversation

The Necessity of Changing the Strategy Conversation Streaming is probably one of the biggest digital shifts we’re seeing. Around the world, conversations are taking place with companies about how to build successful business models around streaming—whether it’s books, audio, video or podcasts. These companies range from giants like Netflix to small indie podcast producers. I have a client who is an executive in strategy at a fairly large streaming organization in the United States, and I'm going to paraphrase some of the discussions we've had to underpin this overarching theme about the economics of streaming. Her business and many others are facing an underlying issue: Artists who supply content for streaming platforms are complaining because they’re not being paid enough. Whether it’s artists streaming on Spotify or podcasters streaming on other platforms, they feel that the percentage of revenue they make is not big enough. In the old model of the music industry, large record labels would listen to many potential stars, pick a few, pay them an advance, assign them a big budget and massive promotion, share around 30% of the profits or less, and only after the advance was paid off would the artists continue to get 30%…

25 best strategy books to help you excel at business strategy

25 Best Strategy Books to Help You Excel at Business Strategy This is a curated list of the best strategy books that I, and other partners you know from the FIRMSconsulting training programs, think are best in preparing you to understand, apply and excel at the development and execution of business strategy. We are going to recommend books that we have recommended for our clients and the partners use themselves. These books teach you how to think like a major consulting firm's partner. They teach you how to think to develop unique solutions to your specific problems. 14 best strategy and critical thinking books recommended by Michael Succeeding as a Management Consultant When people think about the business strategy we often think about the field of strategy consulting/management consulting and firms like McKinsey, BCG, et al. If you are interested in learning how to conduct a management consulting engagement, you will likely enjoy this book. Succeeding as a Management Consultant is a book set in the Brazilian interior. This book follows an engagement team as they assist Goldy, a large Brazilian gold miner, in diagnosing and fixing deep and persistent organizational issues. This book follows an engagement team over an…

Implementation, Strategy, and Operations Consulting

Differences Between Implementation, Strategy, and Operations Consulting One concept is consistently misunderstood in management consulting and that is the differences between strategy, operation, and implementation. Here are the common misinterpretations: McKinsey only does strategy work. Deloitte and other accounting firms are great at implementation. Implementation consulting is the same as operational strategy consulting. We are going to explain the key difference and which firms are good at each type of consulting. Strategy Strategy consultants help senior executives determine the overall direction in which they will take the business. It is about taking a top-down view of the business and looking at the allocation of scarce resources. Strategy consulting is difficult. It requires deep analytical skills and the application of strong and disciplined problem-solving skills. Principles like decision trees, MECE, and hypotheses-led research are used. What Do Strategy Consultants Do? Examples of strategy work include: What should be our long-term vision? Should we retain the same portfolio of businesses? Should we enter this market? Do we have a competitive advantage? What is the best way for us to extract value from our SUV division? At the end of a strategy consulting engagement, the client is given detailed market research outlining the…

Corporate Strategy for Power Utility

Corporate Strategy for Power Utility Corporate strategy is not like a business unit strategy whereby the corporate objectives of the parent are guiding the business unit/division. Understanding business unit strategy is much easier if you think of a lighthouse analogy. The direction and objectives of the parent company are the lighthouse, and the purpose of the business unit strategy engagement is to watch the lighthouse and build a plan to get there. So, the lighthouse may be, for example, insisting on no less than 30% market share and a return of 18% on all investments. In business unit strategy, the consultants need to build a path to these objectives. In corporate strategy, there is no lighthouse. The job of the corporate strategy engagement team is to develop that lighthouse. What should be the purpose, direction and objective of the parent? The canvas of options is blank and it is scary. The longer the team takes, the longer you have life rafts aka the operating divisions floundering around for direction. This is why corporate strategy is so complex. There are so few rules and boundaries and an inexperienced consultant can end up causing a lot of damage. A too conservative management…

Consulting Storyboard for Strategy Engagements

Consulting Storyboard for Strategy Engagements In today’s complex and competitive environment, the difference between a strategy that moves forward and one that gathers dust often comes down to how it is communicated. A well-structured narrative, anchored by a clear storyboard, can transform a set of insights into a meaningful, actionable plan. In today's post (and associated video if you prefer to watch versus read), we will talk about the consulting technique that creates Pixar magic. We will explore why storyboarding is at the heart of effective consulting engagements. By understanding how to build and refine a compelling story, you can turn scattered data and analysis into a catalyst for meaningful change. An effectively designed consulting storyboard allows you to showcase your firm’s credibility, ability to think clearly and creatively, communication in a concise manner, and ability to develop insights others can't. And, of course, you can use consulting storyboards outside of consulting. In fact, it can be an even more powerful tool to use outside of consulting because it is so rarely used. Storyboard matters in consulting studies because useful insights mean very little unless they can be woven into a compelling story. Critical insights that are not presented as a…

What is scenario planning and how to use it

What is scenario planning and how to use it In today’s post we are going to talk about scenario planning, the last technical input that went into the visioning workshop /strategy workshop as part of the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. We will discuss what is scenario planning, some reasons why the scenario planning tool is insufficient to make decisions and steps in scenario planning. We will also offer an example of how to use this tool in visioning workshops with clients. What is scenario planning Before we discuss how to conduct scenario planning let's look at what is scenario planning. So what is scenario planning? Scenario planning is a planning tool used to make flexible long-term plans to deal with major, uncertain shifts in the organization’s environment. It is also a tool that allows companies to develop a resilient strategy or test the flexibility of the existing company strategy against various possible future alternatives. In other words, scenario planning is a structured way for an organization to identify and gain a deeper understanding of the underlying major drivers of change, think about how those potential changes may impact an organization, determine what is required for the organization to succeed if potential changes occur and develop…