Five Valuable and Timely Diagnostics

Clients over the years have asked why spending such a small amount of time on each of our five Diagnostics yields such keen insights. Please see some Testimonials in the Welcome sub-section of the About Us section and detailed information on the diagnostic approach in the Amazing Things About Our Diagnostics section. Or if you want more detail, please go to our White Paper in the Publications section here titled Vital Diagnosis.

Diagnostics #1 and #2 are administered totally online and the diagnostic reports and Roadmaps are discussed via Go to Webinair or similar enablement. The Business Performance Engine diagnostic has these features but is supplemented with face-to face interviews for geographically close clients or telephone or Skype interviews to collect the data for not geographically close clients. Thus, in addition to our affordable fees, we are lowering our cost to deliver to allow the affordable fees and to change the business model for strategy diagnostic consulting and related services and products.

 

Diagnostic #1: Robust Competitive Strategy Diagnostic*

Assesses your current cost to deliver, customer willingness to pay and how sustainable into the future your current sources of competitive advantage are.

  • Deliverable:

Portrayal on the Pricing Power/Profit and Productivity Frontier Grid and observations for immediate improvement

Estimated time to complete diagnostic per executive = 1 – 1.5 hours

 

 

Diagnostic #2: World Class Strategy Execution Diagnostic – AAME for Gold™*

  • Assesses your current state of how well you execute your current and proposed new strategic initiatives against world class benchmarks

Deliverable:

Portrayal on the 4Bs Grid: Getting Better, Getting Bigger, Getting Broader, Getting Bolder and observations for immediate improvement. We offer “The One Big Thing” to start immediately and four to five core initiatives to get started.

Estimated time to complete diagnostic per executive = 1.75 – 3.0 hours

 

  • AAME for GOLD™ = Analysis, Architecture, Mobilization and Entrepreneurship for Growth Opportunities at Lightning Deployment

 

Diagnostic #3: The Business Performance Engine (BPE) Diagnostic:

We want to highlight the Business Performance Engine (BPE) diagnostic as it has been in development for longer, but it is our newest offering. As of December 2015, we are also offering consulting using the Business Performance Engine as a Program Office for Managing Directors of Private Equity portfolios, business units of corporations and private for-profit firms who want to take on Private Equity disciplines.

We are proud to now offer this powerful diagnostic approach and survey as well. I used this approach on the board of directors of Nitro Security, which sold to MacAfee in 2011 for a nice profit to the owners and shareholders. The approach allowed the new venture to turn on a dime in its extremely volatile environment, all along focusing on increasing Total Shareholder Return. Please see Bill Jackson’s testimonial in the About Us section.

The BPE scores fifteen dimensions of your firm’s Environmental Carrying Capacity and thirty drivers of Total Shareholder Return for the publicly traded for-profit or firm valuation for the private for-profit firm. The current status of each of the thirty drivers is displayed on a Spider Diagram. Then improvement goals are set out for each driver over the course of time chosen by you – say one to three years.

We would love to discuss this very rich diagnostic with you, in addition to the Robust Strategy Formulation and World Class Strategy Execution diagnostic, our AAME for GOLD.

Deliverables:

  • Portrayal on the BPE Spider Diagram shows current state of the thirty drivers
  • Sets out a stretch but achievable future state scores for the thirty drivers
  • Prepares the organization for degree of change management

 

  • Estimated time to complete per executive = 30 minutes to 1 hour for each of the 30 drivers (Note: A given executive may have accountability for more than one Driver (usually no more than four Drivers) so their time commitment would increase accordingly while the survey and interviews are open

 

Diagnostic #4: Strategy and Operations Health Check for Smaller Firms

This diagnostic is for CEOs of smaller for-profit businesses to reflect on their business at any current point in time. Or it is for CEOs with their direct reports to get an assessment as a team of the current state of their firm and the current level of performance. CEOs of smaller firms or smaller business units in corporations find this assessment very useful to get fresh observations on their businesses.

Deliverables:

  • We provide our observations on our popular Base Business and Growth Roadmap template. We have used this diagnostic in facilitating the 2015-2016 CEO Roundtables in northwest Louisiana with nice success
  • Estimated time to complete per executive: one to one and a half hours

 

Diagnostic #5: Top Management Strategic Questionnaire (TMSQ)

This diagnostic is best used before a strategic summit meeting or a strategic planning retreat. We have used this for years with great success and have updated the survey over time.

Deliverables:

  • Report of responses anonymously
  • Portrayal of the key issues in the business using a a diagram that displays the extreme poles of the key issues in the business
  • Draft agenda for a very productive strategy summit meeting or strategic planning retreat