BPI Business Position – Envision Phase

Description

• An external “snapshot” of the client organization’s business performance relative to its     position in the marketplace. This assessment identifies the organization’s strengths/weaknesses/opportunities for growth and reviews the client organization’s performance relative to direct competitors and industry leaders.

Customer Value

• The creation of subsequent deliverables (e.g. (Confirmed) Business Vision, Critical Success Factors, and Stretch Targets) requires an understanding of the key issues dominating the competitive environment in which the client is working.    
• The client will be educated on the company’s performance relative to close competitors and/or  other industry leaders.
• This deliverable helps to solidify the Case for Change by highlighting both the urgency and the magnitude of the required transformation.
• Not understanding the Business Position of the client can lead to the development of short-sighted Critical Success Factors and Stretch Targets that do not result in longer-term improvements (such as increases in sales and sustained growth in market share).

Approach

1. Collect and review documentation.
1. Review information gathered from literature searches, organization documents and materials from previous Consulting engagements on the client and key industry issues.
2. Gather any additional information needed for external analysis.
2. Analyze key performance information .
1. Analyze external and/or internal performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, growth, quality, inventory management, customer service, etc.
2. Research/Access available data on competitor/industry performance statistics (Benchmarking).
3. Summarize potential performance comparisons.
4. Construct preliminary comparisons to other operating divisions and/or competitive/industry data.
3. Assess positioning in marketplace.
1. Review client organization’s performance.
2. Itemize internal constraints and external market trends.
3. Assess high-level competitive advantages/disadvantages.
4. Summarize findings into high-level position assessment that identifies market share, profit contribution and the current delivery strategy.
4. Share/confirm major findings with client.

Guidelines

Problems/Solutions

• Use information that is readily available, without spending too much time searching for hard-to-find information.

Tactics/Helpful Hints

• Leverage Consutant industry expertise and benchmarking resources to provide value to client; this exercise represents an opportunity to enhance the credibility of the Firm with the client and demonstrate value early in the BPI effort.
• Have some understanding of key performance indicators for the industry and for the client in particular so that competitive analysis that is done will have some relevance/ value to the client.
• In addition to current business position, analysis should identify (at a high level) future industry trends and assess how internal strengths and weaknesses position the client to take advantage of these future trends.