Business Planning Consulting

Strategic Planning Consulting   

<konvergeandknow> is a new co-branded company formed by Konverge Digital Solutions and Know Inc. The new entity is an exciting venture with a unique niche and value proposition that combines leading edge IT services with world class knowledge management services. konvergeandknow brought us the challenge of leading the new combined management team through a process to not only articulate their vision and strategy, but their unique value proposition as well.

The Planning Group’s original engagement with konvergeandknow was to create the initial plans, and through a quarterly retainer we will help track progress against the plan, maintain a rolling planning horizon, and add additional rigour to the plans and the process itself.

The engagement began with individual interviews with each member of the management team, and key stakeholders outside of the management team to create a context, and glean early learnings. In less than two months we employed several facilitated sessions for the senior management team to create many important deliverables:

• A practical and specific vision of what the management team wants the company to look like in two years time.
• A statement of the firm’s unique and cutting edge value proposition and business model.
• A strategy to migrate the former individual firms to one firm with a compelling and cohesive vision.
• A set of strategic imperatives that will take precedence over everything else as konvergandknow strives to execute their strategy. The strategic imperatives are a crucial tool to create focus and energy among the management team, and to provide a line of sight for all other employees as they strive to reconcile their own duties with the vision and strategy of the firm.
• Detailed 90 day action plans that support the strategic imperatives.
• High level financial targets for revenue, expenses, and income.
• The first draft of several key sub-strategies, including sales and marketing, communication, people and capabilities, client service excellence, and product development.

Although these tangible deliverables are key to the success of this company as it strives to reinvent itself, one benefit of the process clearly rose above all else. The experience of the management team as it went through the exercise together. The team acted as a team, rather than a group of individuals, as it decided where it thought the firm should go, and how it should get there. More importantly, they formed a common understanding and commitment, as well as new found focus and energy, and an important sense of urgency that will be crucial to their success.