Strategic Approach
Strategy Formulation
A significant portion of S&A’s consulting practice is overall business planning support for financial institutions and financial services related companies. In this practice, S&A sets forth practical and measurable goals combined with well-supported new directives for how the objectives will be achieved. S&A’s approach to this type of engagement combines its practical experience in banking with proven business planning disciplines.
Scenario Evaluations
“What if” analyses are an indispensable part of the executive decision making process. Most business decisions are not about finding a single right answer. The more typical situation requires having to select from a number of alternatives, with the objective of finding the best choice available at the time that balances short and long term results with acceptable risk, organizational and implementation, execution issues and priorities. A thorough process of evaluating alternative scenarios includes strategy, marketing, operations, technology, and financial implications. Additionally, the evaluation addresses the tangible and intangible risks and trade-offs associated with each alternative to arrive at an overall assessment of each.
Business Case Justification
S&A brings an objective viewpoint and analytical discipline to the process of evaluating new business initiatives. In today’s volatile business environment, it is essential for companies to validate major initiatives to ensure they are justified against available alternatives and are appropriate given market and competitive conditions.
S&A has over 30 years’ experience assisting financial services companies in establishing reliable business projections for evaluating existing and potential business opportunities.
Implementation
The difference that often distinguishes top performing organizations is their ability to successfully implement complex plans and projects. There are many examples of companies that excel at planning, but fail at execution. This is not surprising considering the myriad of issues involved in running a project. Too often, companies assign projects to internal staff without providing adequate training or experience. Also, it is not unusual for companies to assign projects to internal staff in addition to their normal duties, stretching already limited resources.
S&A can provide ongoing support for clients to assist them in successfully implementing their business plans. S&A has extensive experience managing and assisting implementation projects in a wide range of areas, including mergers and acquisitions, systems development, process improvement, and business tactics. Depending on a client’s needs, S&A’s ongoing support can range from managing part or all of an implementation project to providing management with periodic progress reviews.
Strategy Pyramid
Strategic Planning
"Combining an effective market segmentation scheme with complex financial models provides clients a basis to formulate the profitability of various customer groups. It is also the foundation for the trend from mass marketing to one-to-one marketing."
- Neil St.Germain