For senior executives
Build a growth strategy in four weeks
The method we have used for twenty years, without the months of work, the 300-project program, or the large consulting team.
- The week-by-week workplan, with what to cut when time runs short
- The pitfalls behind most failed strategy exercises
- How to keep the plan owned by the management team
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As featured in
- Forbes
- Financial Review
- Expert360
- Clutch
- Eloquens
When to run one
When four weeks is the right amount of time
Some companies run a review every year as part of planning. Most of the ones we are called into sit at one of the points below instead.
01
Growth has plateaued
Growth has stalled and additional effort is not restoring it. Whether the cause is the market, the proposition or the operating model is worth knowing before another year is spent on the same approach.
02
A new CEO, or new ownership
A new leader has a short window in which to form a view that the board and the team will accept. A review provides an independent fact base to form it from.
03
Ahead of a deal or an exit
Buyers and investors pay for a credible plan. Four weeks is usually enough to produce one that withstands due diligence and supports the valuation being sought.
04
Planning that needs to be more than a budget
The annual planning cycle can become a strategy cycle without adding three months and a consulting bill to it.
05
A specific opportunity has appeared
A new segment, a market adjacency or an acquisition target can be tested for whether it is real, and whether the business can fund it, before capital is committed.
06
A division is underperforming
Whether the problem is strategic or operational is worth establishing before anything is restructured, since the two call for different responses.
The report
A guide you can work from.
Written as a guide rather than a brochure. No case studies of ourselves.
Each area opens with a question checklist you can take straight into a working session, then a worked example of the analysis that answers it.
The hypothesis tree is set out in full, so you can see how a broad question breaks into components that are small enough to test in a week.
It closes on an indicative four-week project plan, setting out the workstreams, the checkpoints, and what has to be finished before the next week can start.
The areas covered, each with its own question checklist.
01
Market context
Segments, size and growth outlook, trends, adjacencies.
02
Strategic positioning
Value proposition, the capabilities behind it, the weaknesses against it.
03
Operating model
Organisation and culture, core processes, systems.
04
Financials
Historical drivers, and a forecast with the strategy overlaid on it.
05
Implementation
Initiatives, named owners, and the metrics that track delivery.
What you get
What a good strategy changes
The report opens with the case for having a strategy at all, and the areas of the business in which a clear one makes a difference.
Strategic
Clarity and agreement at senior level
Management knows which two or three levers its advantage rests on, and the senior team agrees on them, which gives the business a position it can defend.
Financial
Better allocation of capital
Better allocation of capital and a better return on it, because the forecast is built on the strategy rather than on last year plus 5%.
Operational
An operating model that supports the plan
The organisation structure and the core processes are aligned with the strategy.
People
Staff who understand their part
Staff understand the strategy and the role they play in it. Engagement tends to follow alignment.
Board and owners
Oversight against a fact base
The board can test management’s recommendations against a fact base, which tends to improve the quality of the discussion between the two.
Inside the report
Four weeks, set out week by week
Week 1
Frame and hypothesise
The questions the review must answer, the initial hypotheses, and a draft report outline. Data requests go out in this week.
Week 2
Market and customer
Market sizing, competitor position, and a short customer survey. Enough evidence to confirm or reject each hypothesis.
Week 3
Options and economics
High-level modelling of the main financial levers, the strategic options set out, and a first view of which of them the business can fund.
Week 4
Recommend and roadmap
Recommendations, the initiative roadmap, and a report the executive can take to the board without rewriting it.
The full plan, with the checkpoints and artefacts for each week, is set out on page 25.
From the report
Key strategic principles covered in the report
01
Start with the answer
By the end of day two you should be able to state the conclusion you expect. Break it into the components that would each have to be true, then spend the four weeks trying to break it. The leading firms call that structure MECE: mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive.
02
Be 80/20
A short, focused survey or a handful of customer calls gets you to an 80% answer in days. Strategic models exist to compare options rather than to budget, and working capital and tax detail almost never change the decision.
03
Dedicate the resource
A project lead who is freed from other duties, an analyst who can model scenarios, someone internal who knows where the data lives, and a sponsor senior enough to clear roadblocks.
04
Leave time to write
Distilling the analysis into a structured argument takes longer than anyone plans for. Have a draft report outline by the end of week one; it also keeps the 80/20 discipline honest.
05
Plan the implementation
A review without an implementation plan tends to be wasted. You will not write a detailed program plan in four weeks, but you can set the roadmap, with the initiatives, the owners, and when each one is due.
Who wrote it
Written by the people who run the reviews.
Zenith Strategy Associates
A strategy consultancy serving companies, private equity funds and their portfolio companies. Small teams of senior consultants, working alongside management rather than in place of it. This report is the method we use, written down.
The Four-Week Strategic Review
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