Strategy Scenarios: Business Turnaround
Strategy Consulting: Strategy scenarios allow organizations to easily respond to changes and transition between necessary actions during the business turnaround execution
Strategy Consulting Services Overview
Define, design, deploy and deliver
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Business strategy is defined as a set of long-range decisions, results-focused and integrated actions to achieve and sustain the vision and mission of the organization. Once defined, Business strategy is a master roadmap, executed by individual contributors, management, and leadership to accomplish the desired business objectives and goals of an organization.
Organizations are making complex decisions everyday to operate their business, respond to customer trends, combat competitive pressures and navigate a complicated economic environment. Achieving enduring success for any organization relies on it’s ability to create, capture and sustain competitive advantage. Strategy is the action road-map that brings your competitive advantage to life.
As your partner, our Strategy Consulting Practice has the expertise, experience and “new thinking” to help you throughout the strategic journey and make your strategy a success.
Scenario and Contingency Planning
Our strategy services extend across business functions and we serve a broad array of industries. We cover all critical aspects of your business, including strategy, operations, business performance, marketing, innovation, lean, business process, supply chain management and information technology. We serve local, regional and global clients, and we align our efforts with your overall corporate strategy.
Scenario and Contingency planning is a strategic planning method that organizations use to create flexible long-term plans. It allows executives to analyze and prepare for several future alternatives. Contingency Planning explores what effect business disruptions or abrupt market changes might have on a company, and formulates various strategies to address them. By bringing up and testing different “what if” scenarios, executives and managers can conceptualize and challenge hypothetical assumptions in a non-threatening environment prior to deciding the best course of action. Scenario and Contingency Planning allows management to test different strategies to prepare the company to deal with the unexpected.
Strategy Consulting: How does Scenario and Contingency Planning work?
Different companies may have unique approaches when it comes to scenario planning. Generally, the steps to take when Scenario and Contingency Planning might look similar to this:
1. Select a time frame to examine. The first thing you’d want to do in strategic planning is to choose a time frame to explore. Generally, Scenario and Contingency Planning is used to create flexible long-range plans.
2. Identify current state assumptions and thinking processes of key decision makers. The next thing you’ll need to do is distinguish the thought processes of executives and managers. Identifying current assumptions will also provide limits in the company’s strategic planning, although some of those assumptions may not be relevant when brainstorming scenarios.
3. Create varied, yet plausible, hypothetical scenarios. Laying out a list of “what if” scenarios will allow you to create plans on how to deal with each one. Make sure to list all possible scenarios so you’ll know how to address each one in the future. Don’t be afraid to challenge current assumptions or ignore them during this phase. Encouraging contrarian thinking and challenging conventional wisdom will further strengthen your hypothetical scenarios.
4. Test the impact of key variables in each scenario. Now we hypothetically tackle the scenario in all angles, testing the key variables to see what works and what doesn’t work. Again, challenging these scenarios will cultivate a strong sense of preparation.
5. Develop action plans. Now that you’ve “tested” out your hypothetical scenarios, create action plans based on either the most promising solutions or the most desirable outcome the company seeks. Doing so will help your company prepare for the unexpected.
The Scenario and Contingency Planning process isn’t over after you develop an action plan. Monitoring events as they unfold will help test the company’s strategic fortitude. Be prepared to change the course of the plan at any time, as a plan that was developed a month ago may need to be changed in the event of unexpected and new disruptions.
Strategy Consulting: Why should companies focus on Scenario and Contingency Planning?
Scenario and Contingency Planning enables companies to accomplish various things, such as expanding different thought processes, uncovering inevitable future outcomes, protecting against “groupthink,” and challenging conventional wisdom:
• Scenarios expand your thinking. By challenging the potential positive and negative outcomes companies can increase their readiness for the range of possibilities the future may hold. Many people think the future may resemble the past, and that change will occur gradually. This quirk, along with other factors, was most powerfully illustrated during the Great Recession. Many during the Great Recession had only used data going back a few years and were not prepared for the potential outcomes. Remembered the real-estate slump of the early 90s, the crash of October 1987, and so on, if only we challenged our current thinking and data. Developing scenarios generates deeper insight into the underlying drivers of change. Scenario and contingency planning forces companies to ask, “What would have to be true in order for this outcome to emerge?” By testing “what if” scenarios, companies can learn which underlying drivers matter and which do not.
• Scenarios uncover inevitable or near-inevitable futures. As the analysis underlying each scenario proceeds, companies can often identify the powerful drivers of change. These drivers result in outcomes that are the inevitable consequences of events that have already happened or are already developed and trending. A $200B global petrochemical group captured the core of this idea with the saying “When it has rained in the mountains, so it will flood the plains.” In developing scenarios, companies should search for predetermined and unexpected outcomes, such as demographic trends, to obtain powerful insight in the scenario development process.
• Scenarios protect against groupthink. Many times, the power structure within companies inhibits the free flow of discussion. For example, people in meetings typically agree and align with whatever the most senior person in the room says. It’s not uncommon that there are times where employees will wait for the most senior executives to state their thoughts before crafting their “own” opinions. Scenario and Contingency Planning allows companies to break free by challenging opinions and encouraging contrarian thinking. By doing so, each scenario will be challenged and strengthened by a diverse pool of perspective.
• Scenarios allow people to challenge conventional wisdom. In large corporations, there is typically a strong sense to follow the status quo, and as a result, have a strong sense of bias for it. Large amounts of money and many executives’ careers may have been deeply invested in the core and current strategy, which means that challenging some of these assumptions can be difficult. Scenarios provide a effective way to brainstorm alternative futures, in which these assumptions underpinning the current strategy may no longer be true.
WGA’s Strategy Consulting Service Offerings
Our strategy services extend across business functions and we serve a broad array of industries. We cover all critical aspects of your business, including strategy, operations, business performance, marketing, innovation, lean, business process, supply chain management and information technology. We serve local, regional and global clients, and we align our efforts with your overall corporate strategy.
Strategy Consulting
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Business Unit Management
Scenario Based Strategic Planning
Merger, Acquisition and Divestiture
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Information Technology
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Enterprise Technology
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