Making critical decisions for your business often requires an objective, outside perspective. Engaging a business strategy consultancy provides numerous benefits that can set your company up for long-term success. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the top reasons for partnering with a business strategy consultant and how it can positively impact your organization.
What is a Business Strategy Consultancy?
A business strategy consultancy is a team of experienced professionals who provide advisory services to organizations looking to improve performance and achieve their goals. They offer an outside perspective to identify growth opportunities, create strategic plans, facilitate organizational change, and boost competitiveness.
Business consultants are not involved in day-to-day operations. Instead, they take a big-picture view of an organization to provide recommendations and plans to propel its success. This may involve market research, financial analysis, operations evaluation, and change management planning. The level of involvement depends on the scope of the engagement.
Why Seek Outside Expertise?
Business leaders wear many hats and cannot be expected to excel in all areas. A business strategy consultant offers capabilities beyond what may exist internally, providing:
- Industry knowledge: Consultants specialize in different industries and functions, bringing best practices not already being leveraged.
- Technical skills: Certain strategic initiatives require financial modeling, data analysis, and other specialized skills a consultancy possesses.
- Innovation: External consultants introduce new ideas and methodologies that may not organically occur internally.
- Speed: Implementing changes quickly can make or break a strategic plan’s success. Consultants accelerate the process.
The additional skills, expertise and manpower a consultancy provides allows organizations to take on more ambitious projects with less risk.
The Key Benefits of Partnering with a Business Strategy Consultancy
Engaging a business strategy consultant offers numerous advantages that positively impact an organization’s performance and operations. We will explore the main benefits in detail throughout this guide:
- Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
- Accountability and Objective Perspective
- Expertise, Experience and Collaboration
- Focus on Core Business
- Strategic Planning Facilitation
Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
Every successful business needs a clear direction. Strategic planning provides a roadmap to guide the organization’s decisions and measure its progress. Developing an effective strategic plan is complicated – easier said than done. This is where a business strategy consultant shines.
The Consultant’s Role
The consultant takes responsibility for facilitating the entire strategic planning process based on your vision, mission and values. This includes:
- Situational analysis: Analyzing internal data, processes, teams and external market conditions, competition and industry trends.
- Strategy formulation: Identifying strategic priorities and defining long and short-term goals.
- Implementation planning: Detailing action plans, resource allocation, measurement systems, and an execution timeline.
They synthesize information from stakeholders at all levels to build cross-functional strategic plans. Their outside expertise lends unique insight throughout the process.
Insight Into Goal Setting and Implementation
Beyond creating an overarching strategy, consultants specify:
- S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based objectives across the organization.
- Key performance indicators (KPIs): Quantitative metrics to monitor progress towards strategic goals.
- Accountability methods: Individual responsibilities, committees, reporting procedures and tracking systems to ensure follow-through.
These elements lead to greater buy-in and make a plan actionable. Consultants also coach leaders and project teams during implementation to ensure adherence.
Strategic Planning Case Study
Design Group, an architectural firm, partnered with a business strategy consultant when they lacked internal alignment on their growth plan. The consultant ran analysis, surveys and workshops to create a 5-year strategic plan detailing specific KPIs, action plans, and accountability measures across the organization’s divisions.
In the first year post-strategic planning, Design Group increased revenue by 15% and profitability by 20% through cross-selling and operational efficiency. The new strategic direction enabled the leadership team to have productive discussions about the firm’s future and make decisions tied directly to strategic goals.
Accountability and Objective Perspective
Beyond strategic planning, business consultants build accountability mechanisms into their recommendations to drive change. They also provide an outside, objective viewpoint unavailable internally.
The Consultant’s Role in Ensuring Accountability
Consultants integrate various accountability tools into their strategic plans, project implementation and organizational processes:
- Milestones: Key dates for deliverable completion ensure initiatives stay on track.
- Progress reporting: Leadership discussions around reports demonstrating strategic plan adherence.
- Performance metrics: Individual and team-level metrics keep employees focused on top priorities.
- Project management (PM) software: PM systems provide visibility into who is responsible for what tasks by when.
- Digitization: Moving from manual to digital processes facilitates data collection for reporting.
Institute Company utilized the above accountability mechanisms while partnering with a consultant to implement an ERP system. The increased transparency kept all teams aligned and on schedule, leading to a smooth launch.
Providing an Objective Perspective
Internal leaders can be too close to their organizations to identify certain issues or opportunities. Business consultants offer an impartial third-party perspective.
They critically evaluate operations and finances to spotlight:
- Inefficiencies: Assess workflows, supply chain, inventory or redundancies.
- Resource allocation issues: Identify departments needing more budget or staff.
- Potential risks: Detect concerning trends in cash flow, competitor actions or market forces.
This outside analysis allows organizations to course correct and capitalize on new possibilities. Consultants also facilitate progress by asking tough questions and speaking candidly with leadership about changes needed. Employees may not feel comfortable pushing certain topics without an outside prompt.
Expertise, Experience and Collaboration
Business consultants are seasoned experts in strategy, leadership, operations, technology and organizational change. Organizations that leverage a consultant’s knowledge combined with internal insight are better equipped to succeed.
Depth of Expertise
Consultants specialize in specific industries and strategic initiatives like:
- Digital transformation
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Turnarounds and restructuring
- International expansion
- Process improvement
This deep expertise allows them to quickly hone in on relevant opportunities and challenges to address. Their strategic recommendations will integrate industry best practices other organizations are leveraging to great success.
Breadth of Experience
In addition to specialty areas, business consultants have worked with countless companies facing nearly every business challenge imaginable. This gives them unmatched experience creating strategic solutions under all different circumstances.
These veterans can say “we’ve seen this before, here is what worked.” This breadth of perspective provides unique foresight during strategy creation.
Collaborative Approach
The best consultants view engagements as a collaborative partnership between themselves and client leadership. Together they identify issues, debate alternatives and align on plans.
Consultants provide the knowledge and tools while clients contribute critical internal understanding of organizational needs. This inside-outside teamwork leads to realistic, tailored strategies with greater buy-in during implementation.
Methodologies and Tools
Beyond expertise, consultants introduce proprietary frameworks, analytical models and facilitation techniques honed over years of practice. A few examples include:
- PEST Analysis: Evaluates external factors – political, economic, social and technological.
- Porter’s 5 Forces: Assesses competitive landscape and business position.
- Change management models: Frameworks that support successful organizational change.
- Facilitation methods: Strategies to spur creative thinking and alignment during working sessions.
These methodologies yield more comprehensive, insightful analysis and strategic recommendations.
Focus on Core Business
Executing a strategic plan requires consistent effort over years. Handing the reins to a consultant allows business leaders to focus energy elsewhere.
Allowing Focus on Core Activities
Consultants manage vital projects so organizations can direct their attention towards:
- Innovating: Enhancing existing products and services or launching new offerings.
- Scaling: Expanding production and operations to increase market share.
- People: Retaining talent through professional development, culture building and competitive compensation initiatives.
- Partnerships: Forging value-add partnerships and improving channel relationships.
Driving such mission-critical business activities ultimately leads to greater profitability and competitiveness.
Alternative Approaches
If handing over control of strategy execution does not align with an organization’s preferences, there are alternative approaches to engaging a consultant:
Coaching
Consultants provide expert guidance while company leaders drive execution. Benefits include skill-building and greater comfort during organizational change.
Project-Based Consulting
Consultants handle specialized projects with defined scopes and deliverables while core operations remain internal. This allows focus on launching a new product line or entering a new region without taking attention away from general business activities.
On-Demand Consulting
Access consultant services as-needed without an ongoing partnership. Periodically gain an outside perspective on business performance and emerging challenges through this flexible model.
Regardless of scope, delegating specific responsibilities to an experienced business consultant reduces a company’s workload so they can excel in other areas.
Strategic Planning Facilitation
If none of the options mentioned above resonate with you, there is another alternative to consider: strategic planning facilitation. This approach is centered entirely around your needs and preferences, with a professional who specializes in facilitating the planning process.
The Facilitator’s Role
A facilitator guides your internal teams through structured strategic planning workshops, focused on:
- Gaining alignment on vision, values, goals
- Fostering collaborative discussions
- Considering various growth strategies
- Determining strategic priorities
They manage the meeting formats and processes utilizing specialized techniques without weighing in on decisions. This allows your leadership team to craft plans itself with an expert guiding the efficiency and effectiveness of sessions.
Facilitators also provide proprietary frameworks and tools to inform perspectives and decisions. However, company leaders have complete control over final strategic plans.
Tailored Exploration of Possibilities
Unlike traditional consulting engagements, your internal teams drive all discussions with a facilitator present. This leads to an exploration of strategies tailored specifically to your organization’s culture, strengths, and preferences.
A third-party perspective is still introduced through questioning, best practice examples, and coaching. However, facilitating drives more organic, sustainable strategy creation and buy-in during execution.
Leaders feel invested in plans they actively shaped themselves compared to an outside consultant delivering a prescriptive roadmap. The flexibility and transparency of this approach provides the best of both worlds for many organizations.
Conclusion: Harness the Power of Outside Experts
Engaging a business strategy consultancy offers immense advantages, from goal setting and accountability to industry knowledge and facilitative support. Take the first step by:
- Clarifying your needs: What problems need solving? How can an outside expert provide the most value? What scope of involvement do you prefer?
- Researching consultants: Look for specializations matching your goals, cultural fit, satisfied clients and administrators.
- Scheduling introductions: Have exploratory discussions to determine if the partnership feels like the right match.
While handing over control can feel daunting initially, an experienced business consultant empowers organizations to thrive through informed, strategic decision making. Harness their expertise to guide your company into the future.
