Business Strategy

Moments of truth for strategy are the point where choice is required or trade-offs made – a key infrastructural investment business case, commercial negotiations requiring you to ‘give in order to get’ or some external factor requiring re-prioritisation of critical resources. Gravelroad’s interest is helping clients develop strategy that helps at the point of decision and seeing that through to an outcome.

Many businesses have good business strategies, although many fail to execute them. Gravelroad provides client organisations the management frameworks that support long term objectives (often market positioning and economic efficiency) with the short term drivers of cash flow, profitability, and productivity.

Formulaic approaches to strategy problems tend to have a formulaic result – usually a PowerPoint pack! At the other end of the spectrum treating every problem as unique and demanding a unique approach usually has an expensive result. The key is to break down strategy into executable chunks that can be handled by day to day managers and for which they can become accountable as managers. We know that managers have to make daily tradeoffs between the short term issues and long term objectives which are often too abstract to have to be meaningful to their positions. So we break problems down into three basic blocks:

1. What decisions, what sequence should they be addressed in?
2. Strategy development – getting to the fact set and developing insight from this
3. What is the best way to syndicate so that intent formed can become actions initiated?

Good management consulting companies provide clients with a suitable strategy, and there are many proven ‘template’ approaches to this which will provide a good outcome on paper. The weakness of these template approaches is that while thorough, they often do not accommodate the cultural ‘style’ and distinctive characteristics of the organization, and leave ‘strategy’ assigned to senior management. In these cases, the strategy stays on paper and seldom becomes a part of the development of the business.

Gravelroad works with clients all the way from the chief executive to middle management and front line staff. We look not just at ‘why’ and ‘what’ needs to be done but also to the ‘how’ and ‘who’. We include in the strategy change management and people development programs to make the why and what real to front line staff and managers, and allow them to play their part, and be accountable for driving the organisation forward rather than being told what to do.

Gravelroad employs experienced strategists who are credible at Board and executive level and with middle management and front line staff. We take a pride in contributing to the success of our clients. Here are some examples of work undertaken by our people:

• Feasibility study, Board approvals and commercial negotiations for a critical item of NZ aeronautical infrastructure
• IS Strategic Plan project prioritisation review for a major electricity infrastructure provider
• Data Centre business case
• Telecommunications infrastructure commercial opportunity assessment