When strategic recovery requires more than cost cutting
How turnaround strategies can rebuild competitive position by resetting the portfolio, operating priorities and sources of future growth.
Read articleRelated macro
Business strategy
Define business strategy through rigorous choices on growth, positioning, portfolios, resources and execution.
Discover the macroEditorial overview
Articles
Designing the next business model before the current one plateaus
How companies can identify new value pools and build business models that combine differentiated customer value with scalable economics.
Read articleFocus
Where exactly is the value supposed to appear?
Every strategic initiative should have a credible path from action to operational outcome and from that outcome to measurable economic value.
Which consumers are actually worth building for?
A large segment can still be strategically unattractive when acquisition cost, price sensitivity or weak retention undermine its economics.
Strategic challenges
A good idea is not yet a business
Customer enthusiasm can coexist with weak pricing, expensive acquisition or an operating model that becomes uneconomic at scale.
Innovation portfolios rarely fail from a shortage of ideas
The harder problem is concentrating enough talent and capital behind a limited number of opportunities to generate meaningful evidence.
POV
You cannot position your way out of contradictory behaviour
A stronger narrative cannot compensate for decisions that consistently undermine the corporate position the organisation claims to hold.
Scaling is not the reward for growth
Scale should follow evidence that the underlying system becomes stronger, not merely larger, as customers and complexity increase.
Strategic impact
The strongest move may change the game
Competitive strategy can create more value by altering customer choice, economics or market structure than by outperforming rivals on established terms.
Strategic choices should change resource allocation
A strategy that leaves investment, talent and management attention essentially unchanged may be describing ambition rather than directing action.
What we observe
Cost reduction often reaches the wrong conclusion first
We frequently see visible expenses cut rapidly while structural complexity and economically weak products or customers remain untouched.
Large accounts can hide weak economics
We frequently see strategic importance assigned according to revenue while complexity, concessions and servicing requirements quietly erode value.