Case Study: Implementing Issue-Based Strategic Planning to Drive 3X Value Growth

Dell had just gone private after years of slow growth and an acquisition-driven expansion strategy that added services, storage, and software capabilities but lacked a coherent value-creation framework. Michael Dell and the Executive Leadership Team wanted to transition from opportunistic deal-making to disciplined, value-based strategic planning. They needed a process that would identify and fund the right initiatives to drive the company’s value to three times its take-private valuation within five years. The challenge was implementing a completely new planning approach across a $60B company with four major business units, each with their own strategic priorities and planning cultures.

The Challenge

Strategic planning at large corporations often produces elegant presentations but little actual change. Business units submit their plans, corporate strategy reviews them, leadership approves budgets, and everyone goes back to executing the same strategies they had before. The problem isn’t lack of ideas. It’s lack of a systematic process to identify which issues truly matter, size their impact on business value, and force decisions on a timeline that allows the company to capture opportunities before they disappear.

Dell’s situation was particularly complex. The company had four major business units (End User Computing, Enterprise Solutions, Services, and Software) operating somewhat independently. Each had their own view of growth opportunities. Each had initiatives they believed warranted investment. Without a common framework to evaluate these opportunities against the overall value-creation goal, corporate leadership had no objective way to allocate capital and talent across the portfolio.

The Executive Leadership Team had partnered with Bain & Company to adopt what they called the New Dell Management Model, an issue-based planning approach Michael Mankins had developed through work with companies like Boeing, Ford, and USAA. My job was to lead the first full implementation of this new process, working across all four business units to identify the strategic issues that would close the gap between our current trajectory and our aspiration. This wasn’t a pilot or a test. It was the foundation for how Dell would make strategic decisions going forward.

My Approach

I coordinated with Bain & Company to customize their approach for Dell’s specific context. We started with a rapid market overview, collecting relevant market data and business and technical trends to paint a clear picture of the current growth environment. Then, working directly with the CEO and CFO, we set a stretching but achievable goal for the business value we were targeting in five years.

The critical step was understanding the gap between aspiration and reality. I worked with the BU Presidents and Finance leaders to build detailed estimates of our current business trajectory given existing investments and strategies. With our aspiration line and trajectory line on a graph, the gap became tangible. This wasn’t a theoretical planning exercise. It was a concrete challenge with a specific dollar value we needed to create.

Next, I facilitated discussions with each business unit leader and their strategy teams to produce a comprehensive list of potential initiatives or issues they needed to solve to close the value gap. Each idea required detailed description and rigorous sizing. We estimated revenue and margin impact, then translated that to free cash flow valued at an agreed industry multiple to determine the contribution to business value. We also ranked each initiative by its decision window, meaning when a decision was required to fully address the opportunity within our planning horizon.

Using these lists, I facilitated workshops with the Executive Leadership Team to select the top three to five initiatives for each business group. These became the “Dell Agenda,” mapped to a decision calendar that I managed throughout the year. My role shifted from planning to execution support. I worked with each business unit leader to progress their issues, ensuring that decisions and potential investments were made on schedule in key areas.

Throughout the five-month process, I had to be flexible and creative to accommodate the different storytelling and messaging styles of various ELT members. I served as a coach, explaining how their inputs would be used and providing corporate center perspectives that helped leaders shape their proposals to be more digestible and compelling to Michael Dell and their peers.

Results & Impact

• Successful process implementation: Identified 18 strategic issues for the first year’s Dell Agenda decision calendar, all of which successfully created aligned strategies and received investments throughout the year
• Direct sales capacity expansion: Secured approximately $100M per year investment to create more direct sales capacity, positioning the PC and server business for major share gains over the following three years (more than 400 basis points)
• Value creation: Multiple investments from the first Dell Agenda contributed to explosive company growth over the subsequent three years, driving past the 3X value target in 3 years
• Organizational capability: Established a repeatable strategic planning framework that gave business unit leaders a consistent, digestible way to influence resource allocation and secure funding for growth initiatives
• Cross-BU alignment: Created common language and process for strategic decision-making across four major business units that had previously operated with independent planning approaches

Key Insight

Issue-based strategic planning is extremely detail-intensive and deliverable-heavy. Our first implementation took nearly five months end to end. Maintaining momentum and compliance with the process was difficult because it was new to everyone. Leaders questioned whether all the work was necessary. They wanted to skip steps or shortcut the analysis.

Being flexible and creative during the process to accommodate different leadership styles was essential. Some executives wanted detailed financial models. Others preferred narrative storytelling. Some responded to competitive benchmarks while others focused on customer needs. The core process had to remain consistent, but how we presented information and facilitated discussions needed to adapt to each leader’s preferences.

Serving as a coach was equally important. I had to constantly explain how each piece would be used in later stages, why the rigor mattered, and how their inputs would influence final decisions. Providing corporate center perspectives helped leaders understand what would resonate with Michael Dell and the broader ELT, making their proposals more compelling and increasing their chances of securing resources.

Ultimately, the process succeeded because it gave business unit leaders something they desperately wanted: a consistent and digestible way to influence the CEO and their peers to get the resources they needed to drive growth. Once they saw that the process actually delivered funding and strategic alignment rather than just creating work, adoption became much easier. The first year was the hardest. By year two, leaders understood the value and the process became embedded in how Dell made strategic decisions.