Strategic Consulting

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” It was during the 1940s that Kurt Lewin, the founder of social psychology research, pronounced these words that were to become so well-known to students and scholars in the social sciences. In 2012, another psychologist, Anthony G. Greenwald, professor at Washington University, reversed the quotation, declaring, “there is nothing so theoretical as a good method.” Beyond their stylistic effect, these two quotations represent an effort to draw together theory, methods and practices.

The assessment of the environment’s value is one of the most classic missions for a consulting firm. Assessing the value of the company’s environment may be the main reason for initiating a consulting mission, but today this is more often the first step in a broader mission whose objective is to help the company CEO and top managers to formalise, validate and make a strategic growth decision. Building on a specific environment assessment methodology, this chapter aims, firstly, to help CEOs and top managers clarify the boundaries and challenges of their company’s current or future environment. The environment assessment methodology also allows identification and evaluation of the key players of an environment, monitoring of the behaviour and strategy of these key players, and can suggest strategic responses and scenarios. Finally, this chapter proposes tools to detect new markets and client segments, and facilitate the emergence of new competitive spaces.

Growth is the logical continuation of the imperative for speed, agility and movement that is widespread across companies. This chapter intends to help CEOs and top managers identify different growth directions and choose the “right” growth strategy. Choosing a growth strategy requires a refined and “granular” knowledge and assessment of the company’s portfolio of strategic business units (SBUs). After this review, CEOs and top managers must define a precise vision of the level of current and potential growth not only of the whole portfolio, but also of each SBU. In a next step, CEOs and top managers must ask whether the portfolio should be maintained and supported in its current configuration or whether it should be transformed by developing new SBUs and/or by divesting some units.

This chapter develops the main missions that may be proposed to consultants when analysing internationalisation of companies. A first set of missions deals with the “why” of internationalisation: what are the company’s needs or issues that internationalisation will address? A second set of missions focuses on the “where” of internationalisation. Here the question lies in the choice of target countries or regions. The “how” of internationalisation brings a third set of missions. The targeted markets or countries have already been selected and the consultant’s role is to help the company choose a mode of entry and ensure that it will be successfully implemented. The final set of missions concerns the “when” of internationalisation. The timing of the internationalisation process brings up questions that a strategy consultant can help to answer: when should the company start its internationalisation? Should it latch onto opportunities for international expansion as soon as these come up or should it wait until having reached a minimum size, implying that it has already accumulated locally sufficient competencies and resources to expand abroad?

The question of strategic management of innovation is one that consultants deal with, as innovation is the prime concern of a company’s strategy; an innovative offering, a more efficient manufacturing process or a different way of organising internal and external operations may generate a distinctive competitive advantage and support company growth. However, when a company innovates, it embarks on a complex process that affects every part of the organisation and all aspects of operations. The process is even more complex, since the company’s innovation behaviour has to fit its strategic choices. Indeed, the competences required to explore new directions and achieve innovation may be different from those that allow the long-term exploitation of innovation’s benefits.

Who are my clients? What do they consider valuable? How can we generate revenue by offering what they really want? What is the best profit formula to create value for clients at an appropriate cost for the company? By providing the right answer to these questions, this chapter seeks to help the company implement its strategy effectively by designing the business model that reflects its entrepreneurial, technological, and organisational choices. The process should allow the generation of a differentiated model that will be better than existing alternatives. The competitive advantage will emerge from either delivering more value to a specific clientele, or rethinking the way to create value more effectively by implementing a new set of best practices that put the company ahead of the competition.