Services: Strategy
Business success requires foresight, dexterity, and flexibility. Our innovative strategic planning tools embody all three and enable companies to anticipate future threats and opportunities, develop and test strategic options, and ultimately achieve or maintain a leadership position.
And while many companies subcontract their strategic planning to an outside consulting firm, we believe that true strategic flexibility is achieved through coaching and collaboration. Outward Insights consultants offer expertise and guidance so that you can learn, apply, and ultimately own a set of innovative planning tools. Our approaches – scenario planning, wargaming, and competitor simulations – have all been road-tested and proven to deliver strategies that acknowledge, embrace, and are resilient against future uncertainty.
Scenario Planning
In many ways the world is vastly different than it was ten years ago and unexpected future changes can have a dramatic impact on your business. Will changing economic conditions cause your customers to abandon (or embrace) your products or services? Is your company prepared to cope with a catastrophic event? What effect could foreign political developments have on your costs and ability to grow?
Scenario planning helps an organization envision a future very different from the present and develop concrete strategies that ensure success in a number of different possible futures. You will also develop specific, measurable indicators that provide an early warning of what the future may bring … and the opportunity to start preparing today. Details
Strategic Early Warning Systems
If your company is like most, it spends a fraction of the time and effort necessary to sufficiently monitor and assess external developments and circumstances. Yet, isn't the greatest source of strategic surprise the company's external environment?
More and more, companies today require a "department of surprise avoidance," or a means to anticipate future external threats and opportunities combined with improved peripheral vision to see what's coming and take action immediately. How? By building a virtual strategic early warning system that combines analysis of plausible threat scenarios with a simple and effective approach to information monitoring. We not only help companies build indicator-based early warning systems, but, thanks to our partnership with software provider Strategic Radar, we also include dynamic, ongoing monitoring and analysis of key strategic indicators to help your strategy adapt to changes in the external environment. Details
Strategy Gameplanner™
Our Strategy Gameplanner project is an effective way to test strategic plans against likely competitor actions and counter-actions, and then develop contingency plans in the face of future uncertainty. Unlike unstructured brainstorming sessions, or contrived traditional war games, a Strategy Gameplanner is based on actual facts of today’s competitive environment and structured to produce actionable and resilient strategies. Details
Competitor Response Modeling™
Knowledge is power – particularly when it pertains to competitor activity. Identifying the range of possible competitor actions before you launch a new product or initiative can mean the difference between success and failure. Our Competitor Response Modeling Service helps you to develop a strategy that preempts and thwarts challenges to your market position, and allows you to implement with increased confidence and speed. Details