The role of the Chief Executive Officer has become increasingly complex in recent years. There is no doubt that business environments are rapidly evolving. In order to succeed, leaders must constantly evaluate the overall strategy and its components for effectiveness. Our CEO Stack advisors will help you articulate your vision, identify the right areas to focus on to succeed, and ensure that the things that people are doing everyday are driving value for the organization.
Business Strategy
What is it?
Strategic planning is critical to scalable and sustainable business success. Without a business strategy, employees across the organization lack a road map to guide them in their day to day activities, which can have severe consequences. Effective strategic planning has many benefits, including setting priorities , directing resources, improving operations, establishing shared goals, and defining success. Strategic planning is an exercise that requires leaders to make fundamental decisions about where the company is going and what initiatives are necessary to realize success, both now and in the future.
Why Management Stack?
Management Stack advisors are experts in strategic planning and management systems. We believe in balancing financial and non-financial measures when planning for the future. We also believe in focusing on the things that predict future performance, rather than just looking back once it is too late to affect the results. These beliefs are the premise of a strategic management tool called a Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard has as its first step to create a clear and concise vision and strategy for the company. This should tell everyone where the company is going and how it is going to get there. Then, define the perspectives through which success should be viewed. Next, develop a few key objectives, or areas in which the organization must excel in order to succeed, within each perspective. Once the objectives are defined, decide how to measure success or failure. Finally, leaders must determine what initiatives will be launched to ensure success. The development of an effective business strategy is arguably the most critical of the success factors in any business. Management Stack can guide your organization to create a plan perfectly suited to position your company for success.
Acquisition Assimilation
What is it?
Even before an acquisition deal is closed, successful assimilation of the two companies needs to begin. The financials, processes, systems, and people of two separate entities need to be integrated into one fully functioning organization with a single overarching culture. Many organizations underestimate the challenges such an undertaking can bring. Decisions need to be made regarding how to combine financial information to meet reporting requirements, processes need to be aligned, and systems need to be integrated. If cultural issues are not addressed, culture clash will likely ensue, inevitably leading to an unproductive, demoralized, frustrated, nervous, and unhappy workforce.
Why Management Stack?
Management Stack advisors will work closely with business leaders through the assimilation process, which should begin long before the deal closes. The process begins with identification of differences between the pre-acquisition organizations as well as assessments of which processes, systems, and cultural characteristics of each organization should be preserved. Once the new vision is articulated, work needs to begin immediately to identify key objectives, or areas in which the company must excel to achieve the vision. It is imperative that the objectives span the entire organization across the financial, customer, internal business process, and employee perspectives. Next, we will pinpoint the appropriate measures to monitor success in the achievement of each objective. The strategy will then be translated into action with the development of key initiatives at all levels of the organization that will support execution on the assimilation strategy.
Customer Loyalty
What is it?
Customer satisfaction used to be a common metric to measure a company’s performance. It’s simply not enough anymore that a customer is just satisfied. In today’s business environment, where customers are increasingly becoming an important part of your marketing department, customer loyalty is the new benchmark. Loyal customers will promote your product or services to others, while detractors of your product or services will tell others they should stay away. Promoters need to be nurtured while detractors need to be turned around quickly.
Why Management Stack?
Management Stack advisors are experts on Net Promoter Score, a program created by Bain & Company, Fred Reichheld, and SatMetrix, to measure customer loyalty and predict future behavior. The Net Promoter Score is based on the belief that if you ask customers one simple question – How likely is it that you would recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague? – you can get an accurate view of how your customers see your value. Management Stack can help you implement ways to measure and calculate the Net Promoter Score. It’s not enough to simply measure customer loyalty though. Management Stack can guide you in creating and following a process to actually drive improvements in customer loyalty, thus enabling profitable growth.
Process Improvement
What is it?
Business strategy is key to success at any organization. But strategy without execution is nothing more than a wish. Effective and efficient business processes are at the heart of strategy execution. Weak processes lead to shrinking margins, low service quality, and unhappy employees. Top-performing companies transform strategy into action by creating world-class processes to accomplish results. Well-designed processes can add value in the form of higher quality products and/or services, more efficient resource utilization, and improved margins.
Why Management Stack?
Management Stack advisors believe that the first step to process improvement is to evaluate why the process exists in the first place and determine if it is still necessary to achieve a business objective. If it is determined that the process still has validity, Management Stack will analyze the process and help you incorporate efficiency into the existing process or create an entirely new one, if necessary. Change can be difficult. We will provide guidance on managing the impact of process changes. Finally, we will offer recommendations to ensure that the new procedures are fully instilled into your organization, thus providing the maximum benefit.
Balanced Scorecard
What is it?
Balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system created by David Kaplan and Robert Norton and coined in the early 1990s. It has become a standard by which successful companies run their businesses worldwide. The goal of the Balanced Scorecard is to articulate a vision, create a strategy to achieve that vision, and translate the strategy into action. Too often, strategy is something that business leaders create and then put a shelf. Successful strategy execution requires leaders to create a strategy map that has sustainable value then use that map to align what people within the organization are doing everyday with the important things that drive success.
Why Management Stack?
Management Stack team members are experts in creating and implementing Balanced Scorecards. We believe in balancing financial and non-financial measures when planning for the future. We also believe in focusing on the things that predict future performance, rather than just looking back once it is too late to affect the results. We will attain a deep understanding of where you want to take your business and help you develop a comprehensive plan to get there.