Nothing is more important to the fortunes of a business than understanding why it matters. How will it make a difference to its customers’ lives? What meaningful contribution will it make, functionally, as a product, and emotionally, as a brand? What’s in it for them? Write this understanding down in a handful of words. Everything else [...]
Businesses need to know that they matter. And why. They need to believe that what they do today matters enough to contribute their fortunes and their sustainability tomorrow. This is the both the promise and the responsibility of strategy. I believe our consultancy matters because: I have the ability to get to grips with the heart of [...]
This article first appeared in the Financial Mail on 8 July 2016. The chicken and the egg of business and brand. Professor Cynthia Montgomery, past head of the Strategy Unit at Harvard, regards purpose as the first step in developing a business strategy. But is that right? There is the chicken and the egg. [...]
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the Financial Mail on 15 December 2015.) Business strategy and brand strategy: the twin strands of a company's DNA. In our experience, a lot of leaders battle to articulate their business’s purpose. They struggle to find what Professor Cynthia Montgomery, the past head of the Strategy Unit [...]
