Business strategy

Analyses a business school case the case-method way - key facts, the real problem, options weighed with the case's numbers, a recommendation and an implementation plan.

Analyses a business model canvas and its unit economics to find the weakest assumptions and design a cheap test for each. Use before investing more time or money in a model.

Reads a competitor's public accounts or filings for growth, margins, cash and investment signals, compares them with yours and explains what they imply for strategy.

Assesses taking on a contract that would become a large share of revenue - concentration, payment terms, capacity and what happens if it ends - and sets the conditions to accept it safely.

Assesses whether a business has a durable competitive advantage, testing each claimed moat against evidence and naming how to strengthen the real ones.

Assesses whether an owner's business could be franchised - replicability, unit economics with room for a fee, systems, brand and support costs - against company-owned growth or licensing.

Identifies and rates a business's strategic risks - market shifts, dependencies, disruption, regulation, key people - with early-warning signposts and mitigation choices.

Builds a like-for-like price comparison against competitors, normalising packages, fees and terms to one unit, and shows where you sit high or low and why it matters.

Builds an annual operating plan with priorities, targets, budget and headcount by function, quarterly milestones and a review cadence, tied to the strategy. Use for yearly planning.

Builds a needs-based segmentation of your market from data or interviews, sizes and profiles each segment, and chooses which segments to serve and how.

Breaks a business problem into a MECE issue tree with hypotheses, the analysis and data that would prove each, and which branch to work first.

Builds a balanced scorecard strategy map linking financial, customer, process and capability objectives by cause and effect, with measures, targets and initiatives.

Takes a declining business through a turnaround in gated steps - cash triage, diagnosis, cost and focus decisions, a turnaround plan and weekly tracking.

Translates company strategy into each team's priorities and goals, then checks alignment, conflicts between teams, shared dependencies and missing owners.

Compares routes to your customers - direct, own shop or site, retail, marketplaces, wholesale, distributors, resellers - on margin, control, reach and effort, and picks a channel mix.

Helps a tradesperson decide whether to specialise (heat pumps, rewires, kitchens, roofs) or stay general on demand, margin, skills and certification, competition and a test before committing.

Works out how a small business competes when a chain, platform or big rival moves in - where it cannot win, where it can, and the moves to make first.

Decides whether a small business should do an activity itself or outsource it - baking, laundry, bookkeeping, delivery, marketing - on full cost, quality control, capacity, skills and risk.

Decides whether to keep, fix or close an underperforming shop, branch or unit - contribution after its own costs, lease exit, staff, customers who may move - with a time-boxed turnaround test.

Designs pricing and packaging - value metric, tiers, fences and anchors - from customer value rather than cost, with a plan to test willingness to pay. Use when launching or repricing a product.

Compares revenue models - subscription, usage-based, transaction, marketplace, advertising or hybrid - against how a product creates value and how customers buy, and recommends one.

Diagnoses why revenue growth stalled by testing acquisition, conversion, retention, pricing, capacity and market limits against your data, then picks the constraint to fix first.

Writes the core of a business strategy - a sharp diagnosis of the critical challenge, a guiding policy and coherent actions - and rejects goals posing as strategy.

Drafts a Wardley map in text form from a user need and its value chain, places each component by evolution stage and highlights strategic moves and build-versus-buy calls.

Draws a blue-ocean strategy canvas comparing a business with the alternatives customers use, then applies eliminate-reduce-raise-create to find a distinct value curve.

Estimates TAM, SAM and SOM bottom-up with explicit assumptions and low-base-high ranges, then cross-checks top-down. Use for a pitch, a business plan or a go/no-go on a new market.

Evaluates a franchise territory offer - target customers, competitors and nearby units, drive times, rents and realistic sales against the franchisor's figures - with questions to push back on.

Evaluates a proposed joint venture or strategic alliance - each side's goals, contributions, control, value split, exit terms and red flags - and recommends a structure.

Evaluates adding a service or product line to a small business - demand checks, skills and licences, costs, pricing and margin, capacity and cannibalisation - and ends with a pilot plan and decision.

Evaluates a white-label or licensing deal for your product, brand or IP - deal models, how to price it, risks to your brand and the key terms to agree.

Maps a business's processes to practical AI use cases, scores each on value, feasibility and risk, and picks the first pilots with success measures.

Audits how a business quotes, bills and renews to find revenue leaking away - ad-hoc discounts, unbilled extras, legacy prices, missed rises - and ranks the fixes by value.

Acts as an independent franchise consultant who advises buyers and franchisors on territories, unit economics, disclosure documents, support and fees, and is blunt about weak systems.

Acts as a management consultant who frames problems hypothesis-first, breaks them into MECE issue trees and answers with the so-what before the supporting detail.

Maps growth options across market penetration, new products, new markets and diversification, with risks, evidence needed and a recommended sequence.

Refreshes a small business strategy once a year in gated steps - review the year, generate options, choose priorities, plan and budget, then brief the staff.

Matches the strategy tool to the question an owner actually has - SWOT, five forces, business model canvas, pricing, scenario planning - and walks through the chosen one in plain words.

Plans integrating an acquired company - day-one checklist, 100-day plan, people, customers, systems and synergies with owners, plus what to leave alone.

Plans preparing a small business for sale - value drivers, clean-up tasks, likely buyer types, a timeline and which advisers to involve when.

Plans succession for a family or owner-led business - candidates, readiness gaps, handover phases, governance and how to talk with the family and staff.

Plans how a courier or delivery firm grows - more vans and employed drivers, owner-drivers, subcontracting or declining work - compared on cost per drop, reliability and cash.

Plans a multi-year digital roadmap - current systems and pain points, target capabilities, sequenced initiatives, budget ranges, and the people and change risks.

Evaluates diversification options for a farm such as a farm shop, agritourism, events or processing, scoring demand, investment, permissions, labour and risk, and ends with a low-cost pilot plan.

Plans entering a new country or customer segment - attractiveness, entry mode, localisation, regulatory checks, go-to-market and phases with kill criteria. Use when a company is expanding.

Decides how much to raise prices and on which items after costs go up, for a cafe, salon, trade or shop - margin effect, sales you can afford to lose, rounding and timing.

Plans whether and how to open a second shop, cafe, salon or clinic - readiness tests, site criteria, money questions for an adviser, the systems and manager needed, and a go or no-go list.

Designs a leadership strategy offsite - pre-work, a timed agenda, decision sessions, facilitation methods, and the outputs and follow-up the team leaves with.

Sets wholesale and distributor prices and trade terms from your retail price and costs - margin chain, minimum orders, payment terms and conflicts with your own direct sales.

Prepares a business for a recession or sector downturn - exposure check, early-warning triggers, tiered cost and cash levers, and opportunities to take while rivals retreat.

Prices a commercial cleaning contract from site size, tasks, frequency and production rates - labour, on-costs, consumables, travel, supervision and margin - with a bid price and assumptions.

Prices a salon or barber menu from cost per chair hour, product cost and stylist level, flags services that lose money and suggests a simpler menu with add-ons.

Prioritises a portfolio of strategic initiatives on impact, strategic fit, cost, risk and dependencies, then recommends what to stop, start, continue and how to sequence it within capacity.

Builds a deep profile of one competitor from the sources you give - strategy, offer, pricing, customers, finances, recent moves - and predicts their likely next moves.

Finds what in a small business only works because the owner does it - relationships, pricing, problem-solving, skills - and plans how to document, delegate and test it with the owner away.

Runs a McKinsey 7S diagnosis of an organisation, finding where strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff and skills pull against each other, with fixes.

Runs a Porter's five forces analysis of an industry from supplied evidence, rates each force with its drivers, and turns the result into strategic implications and open questions.

Plans a walkround of nearby competitors for a shop, cafe or salon with what to observe and a visit sheet, then turns the visit notes into two or three moves.

Runs a PESTLE analysis of a market from supplied evidence, rates each factor's impact and timing, and turns the most important ones into strategic questions.

Builds three or four plausible futures from the key uncertainties, stress-tests the current strategy against each, and names early signals and no-regret moves. Use when planning under uncertainty.

Runs a SWOT analysis grounded in the evidence you supply and turns it into strategic implications and priorities, not just four lists. Use before a strategy review or a big bet.

Runs a value chain analysis of a business - where cost and differentiation are created across activities - and which activities to strengthen, simplify or outsource.

Runs a yearly health check for a small business across customers, money, people, operations, risk and the owner's own load, scoring each with evidence and choosing the top three fixes.

Screens a list of companies to acquire against strategic fit, size, financial and integration criteria, producing a ranked shortlist and notes on how to approach each.

Writes a discount policy - when discounts are allowed, limits by deal size, what customers give in return, who approves, and how discounts are tracked and reviewed.

Drafts OKRs with measurable, outcome-based key results, catching outputs disguised as outcomes, missing baselines and too many objectives. Use when planning a team's quarter or half.

Sets up ongoing competitive intelligence - who to watch, which sources and alerts, which signals matter, who owns it, the cadence and a monthly digest template.

Tests whether a service business can take more work before marketing for it - chairs, covers, vans, crews, rooms - finding the constraint, the real headroom and what it costs to lift it.

Plays a named rival in a turn-based wargame - the user makes a move such as a price cut or new location, the rival responds realistically, and the debrief shows which moves hold up.

Writes a strategy for one department, such as IT, finance, HR, marketing or operations, that serves the company strategy, with priorities, service levels and resources.

Interviews an owner one question at a time, then writes a one-page strategy - who the business serves, why they choose it, where it will not play, three priorities and the numbers to watch.

Writes a company's three-year strategic plan - where we are, the ambition, a few chosen priorities, what we stop, investments, yearly milestones and measures.