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SRIC-BI has the market and technology experts and tools to help you develop and manage new strategies. In a business environment that is rich in opportunities, only focused, forward-looking companies can hope to lead in their key markets.
- Business-opportunity discovery. SRIC-BI can help your company uncover promising new business opportunities or product concepts by organizing structured workshop discussions. Using our proven process, you and your colleagues can sit down with world-class technical and market experts and discover the opportunities that fit with your business objectives.
- Scenario planning. Scenarios provide a context for your strategy making, clarifying the risks and rewards of alternative courses of action. SRIC-BI helped pioneer scenario planning more than 30 years ago, and the process remains a critical tool of our consulting services today.
- Strategy alternatives. Many companies are overflowing with ideas for the future but lack a systematic process for sorting through strategy alternatives. Choosing wisely from an array of alternatives provides a well-defined, focused strategy. We can help you create alternatives and select the strategy that fits your requirements for profitability, your company's capabilities, and your tolerance of risk.
- Management practices. To implement new strategies effectively, you need a limber, responsive management structure and coherent practices. SRIC-BI can help you match the best management practices to your needs, helping you leverage new resources and competences in service of your strategy.
- Monitoring and response. Once you have a strategy in place, you need good intelligence to carry it out effectively. SRIC-BI specializes in linking intelligence activities to strategy and can help you watch for and analyze signals of change that might require midcourse corrections.
Case Studies
In-Depth Evaluation of Business Strategy
SRIC-BI evaluated a proposed new-business strategy for a semiconductor-equipment manufacturer. During the course of the engagement, SRIC-BI assessed current and future semiconductor-market conditions, plausible changes in industry structure, the client's capabilities and culture, positioning of potential competitors, and changing customer attitudes toward the client's next-generation technology. In addition, SRIC-BI identified and evaluated potential acquisition candidates that would complement and extend the client's existing capabilities. To evaluate the proposed strategy thoroughly, SRIC-BI took a "blank-sheet" approach to identify the best strategy for the client given its capabilities and market conditions. Using the results from our Opportunity Discovery process, SRIC-BI developed a roadmap that not only was consistent with the client's proposed strategy, but identified staged initiatives leading to full implementation. The client is pursuing the strategy that SRIC-BI validated and is executing an acquisition that we recommended. |
Partner in Business Research and Strategy Planning
SRIC-BI is currently working as an outside partner with a property and casualty insurance company to develop new business opportunities for the company. From 1999 to 2002, SRIC-BI facilitated senior-management discussions on long-term strategy, developed future scenarios for how affluent consumer markets could evolve, and helped with marketing programs using VALS™. In addition, the client subscribes to SRIC-BI's Consumer Financial Decision's MacroMonitor, a comprehensive retail financial-services database and marketing program that has measured consumer attitudes, behaviors, and motivations continuously since 1978. |
New Technology Investment Strategy for Display Producer
The objective was to develop an investment strategy in new flat-panel display technologies for a major global display producer. SRIC-BI developed scenarios to characterize the external environment facing new display technologies, developed technology roadmaps for new display technologies and products based on the scenarios, accessed the scenario-dependent differences in the roadmaps to derive major investment signposts and goals, and created a flexible strategic roadmap based on these signposts over time. As a result, the company was able to follow a judicious technology-investment strategy without harming existing businesses or overcommitting resources. |
Strategy-Planning Trade Association
The Board of Directors of a California trade association asked SRIC-BI to assist it in developing a strategic plan. SRIC-BI served as a facilitator, working with the board to develop a consensus on the near- to midterm (three to five years) outlook for the California rice industry. In coming to this consensus about the future of the industry, the association wanted SRIC-BI to develop a mechanism for obtaining input from its entire membership. SRIC-BI designed, distributed, and analyzed a questionnaire to survey a sample of the membership. It presented the results of its analysis in a workshop and worked with the board to develop and rank strategic objectives. The board then used the results of the workshop to develop an implementation plan. |
Relevant Research Programs
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