Services
Three core capabilities. Each designed to deliver strategic clarity that drives bottom-line results.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning processes designed around your culture, capabilities, and decision-making style.
Strategic Analysis
Market, competitor, and opportunity analysis that cuts through ambiguity for high-stakes decisions.
Portfolio Strategy
Product and business unit portfolio optimization frameworks that balance growth with efficiency.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning only works when it fits how your organization actually makes decisions. I design and facilitate planning processes tailored to your culture, capabilities, and business situation, not cookie-cutter frameworks that look good in slides but die in execution.
Two Approaches to Strategic Planning
Most strategy consultants use the same approach regardless of your situation. That’s backwards. The right planning approach depends on where your business is:
Foundational Strategy is about defining where to play and how to win. This determines your target markets and customers, the product categories you’ll compete in, and the core capabilities you’ll build. You need this at company inception, major leadership transitions, post-merger integration, or fundamental business model shifts—not as an annual exercise.
Issue-Based Strategy is the operating rhythm for mature companies. Typically done annually, it focuses on achieving specific objectives over a 3-5 year horizon. We identify the key opportunities and risks standing between current state and your goals, then build action plans to address them. This approach examines performance trends and emerging market dynamics to inform priorities and resource allocation.
Both approaches require a strong fact base: deep understanding of your market and competitive environment, clarity on financial outcomes you’re driving toward, and honest assessment of what’s changing in your industry.
The Process Matters As Much As The Output
Effective strategic planning requires clear structure:
- Defined ownership and process – Top-down or bottom-up depending on your culture
- Specific deliverables and forums – Ensuring alignment across leadership
- Stakeholder communication plan – Keeping key audiences informed throughout
- Investment planning integration – Connecting strategic decisions to budget allocation
What You Get
Depending on your needs, deliverables typically include:
- Facilitated strategy workshops and executive alignment sessions
- Multi-year strategic roadmaps with annual milestones
- Market and competitive analysis supporting key decisions
- Strategic priorities and investment allocation frameworks
- Communication materials for broader organization rollout
- Annual planning process design and facilitation support
Engagement Options
Strategic planning engagements are flexible based on your needs and timeline:
- Ongoing partnership – Run your annual planning process year after year as your business evolves
- Focused strategy session (2-3 weeks) – Rapid facilitation to address immediate strategic questions with informal outputs
- Full planning process (2-3 months) – Complete strategic planning cycle with comprehensive deliverables and stakeholder alignment
- Complex transformation (4-5 months) – Deep engagement for large organizations, post-merger situations, or foundational strategy work
Strategic Analysis
Strategic decisions fail when they’re based on gut feel, incomplete data, or internal politics. I bring disciplined analytical rigor to high-stakes decisions—helping leadership teams cut through ambiguity with fact-based recommendations they can defend and execute.
This is project-based work: you have a specific decision to make, you need it done right, and you need outside capacity and expertise to drive the analysis.
The Decision-Making Process
Every strategic analysis follows a structured approach designed to build conviction and alignment:
- Issue Definition – Framing the decision clearly and defining success criteria upfront
- Fact Base Development – Building comprehensive market, competitive, and internal data to inform the decision. This can range from secondary research (faster, 4-6 weeks) to primary research with customers and experts (deeper insights, 8-12 weeks depending on scope)
- Alternative Generation – Identifying the realistic options you’re willing to consider, not just obvious choices
- Evaluation Framework – Assessing alternatives against defined criteria, including detailed financial modeling when investment decisions are at stake
- Recommendation & Decision Documentation – Clear recommendation with supporting rationale, required investments, and expected outcomes
Driving Alignment Through Involvement
Big decisions shouldn’t be revealed in a single presentation. I structure engagements around 2-3 major stakeholder sessions:
- Fact base review and alternative definition – Ensuring leadership agrees on the landscape and options
- Evaluation review and recommendation discussion – Walking through the analysis logic before finalizing
- Investment plan and outcome alignment – Confirming resource commitments and success metrics
This cadence builds consensus by involving stakeholders in the thinking, not just the conclusion. It reduces the churn and politics that kill good strategies.
Example Strategic Analysis Projects
- Should we participate in a new product category?
- How can we drive growth in Europe or other new markets?
- Build vs. buy: Should we invest in developing a new capability internally?
- What customer experiences need improvement to increase satisfaction and retention?
- M&A target evaluation: Which acquisition creates the most strategic value?
- Partnership assessment: Which partners align with our strategic priorities?
What You Get
Deliverables typically include:
- Comprehensive fact base (market analysis, competitive landscape, customer insights)
- Strategic recommendation presentation with supporting logic
- Financial models and business case analysis
- Decision documentation and implementation roadmap
- Stakeholder alignment materials
Engagement Timeline
Strategic analysis projects are scoped to the decision complexity:
- Rapid assessment (4-6 weeks) – Focused analysis using secondary research for time-sensitive decisions
- Standard analysis (2-3 months) – Comprehensive fact base with moderate financial modeling
- Deep strategic evaluation (4-6 months) – Primary research, complex financial scenarios, multiple stakeholder groups
Who Engages Me
Business and functional leaders facing major decisions: CEOs evaluating growth opportunities, business unit leaders pitching strategic investments, product leaders assessing market entry, functional leaders (IT, Operations) building business cases. Also PE firms and venture investors conducting due diligence or evaluating portfolio company strategies.
Portfolio Strategy
Product portfolios grow messy over time. Legacy brands overlap, acquisitions create redundancy, and SKU proliferation spreads R&D investment too thin. The result: declining returns on development dollars, operational complexity, and unclear market positioning.
I bring disciplined portfolio optimization that balances market coverage with operational efficiency—helping you focus resources on the highest-value opportunities while managing the complexity of portfolio transitions.
The Portfolio Optimization Process
Effective portfolio strategy requires integrating three critical perspectives:
Market and Customer Understanding – Comprehensive analysis of market sizes, customer use cases, unique segments, and competitive positioning. Where are the growth opportunities and where is the market consolidating?
Portfolio Performance Analysis – Rigorous assessment of current financial and operational performance across products and product lines, including forecasted trajectories. Which products are driving growth and margin? Which are declining or subscale?
Resource Allocation Mapping – Clear view of R&D investment, operational costs, and support resources allocated to each product. Where are your development dollars actually going?
Activity-Based Costing: The Foundation
Most portfolio discussions fail because they lack objective performance data. Leaders argue about strategic value without understanding true product economics.
I conduct activity-based costing studies that establish the real cost to produce and support products—including hidden costs buried in shared functions like engineering, operations, and support. This creates an objective baseline for comparing product efficiency before layering in softer strategic considerations like brand value, customer lock-in, or innovation incubation.
With accurate cost data, you can identify which products and segments deliver the highest return on R&D investment—then make informed decisions about where to trim, maintain, or double down.
Example Portfolio Strategy Projects
- Companies with multiple legacy brands that overlap in the market
- Post-acquisition portfolios with redundant products across merged entities
- Highly complex portfolios with hundreds or thousands of SKU variants
- Product line rationalization to improve R&D focus and operational efficiency
- Market coverage optimization balancing customer needs with development capacity
What You Get
Deliverables typically include:
- Market fact base and competitive positioning analysis
- Activity-based costing model showing true product economics
- Current-state portfolio coverage maps
- To-be portfolio architecture and market coverage scenarios
- Product rationalization recommendations with financial impact
- Migration roadmaps and customer transition plans
- Implementation timelines and resource requirements
Expected Outcomes
Portfolio optimization drives multiple benefits:
- Revenue growth through focused investment in high-value segments
- Higher R&D returns by eliminating low-performing products
- Cost reduction from simplified operations and support
- Operational improvements including increased customer satisfaction and improved marketing ROI
- Strategic clarity on where to compete and how to win
Engagement Timeline
Portfolio strategy projects are scoped to portfolio complexity:
- Focused rationalization (6-8 weeks) – Targeted portfolio analysis for specific product lines
- Comprehensive portfolio strategy (2-3 months) – Full portfolio assessment with activity-based costing
- Complex portfolio transformation (4-6 months) – Large portfolios, post-merger integration, or detailed migration planning
Who Engages Me
Chief Product Officers, Business Unit GMs, and Product Line GMs managing complex product portfolios. Also PE portfolio companies post-acquisition or growth equity companies preparing for scale.