The organization had operated for decades under consistent family ownership without a formal enterprise strategy process. This was because stability meant they never had to. When ownership transitioned to a newly appointed CEO and CFO, that capability gap became urgent. The presenting need was a strategic plan, but the true challenge was cultivating alignment within a leadership team that had never defined a collective direction before.
Case Study
They went 30 years without a strategy. We built one in four months.
When ownership handed the reins to a new, non-family executive team, this industrial equipment distributor and service provider needed a direction the whole organization could rally around. We helped the leadership team build its first enterprise strategy in decades, one every executive helped shape and now owns.
Engagement at-a-glance
Industry:
Retail
Organization size:
~ 200-500 employees
Services:
Strategy Creation
Strategy Governance
Facilitation & Experience Design
Strategy Governance
Facilitation & Experience Design
The Challenge
Leadership had the ambition, but lacked a process for turning it into direction.
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Decades without formal strategic planning
The organization had not run a formal strategy process in 30 years. Ownership and operational direction had been centralized for so long that the internal capability to collaboratively build and stress-test strategy had entirely faded.
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An unaligned, newly formed leadership team
The executive team built around the incoming CEO and CFO had not yet established a shared strategic vision. Without that foundational alignment, the organization faced the risk of a strategy shaped by the loudest voices rather than true executive consensus.
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A demand for active ownership over top-down documentation
Leadership wanted to be genuinely involved in shaping direction, not simply asked to approve a plan built by outside consultants. Yet, without an internal facilitator to manage the process, active participation threatened to stall progress rather than accelerate it.
Our Approach
We facilitated the process to help leadership agree on a direction.
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1
Assessed the strategic current state
Conducted individual stakeholder interviews across the executive leadership team to map out existing blind spots, friction points, and areas of natural alignment before a single group workshop began.
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2
Facilitated consensus on direction, vision, and mission
Led three intensive executive workshops to align the full team on long-term trajectory, core trade-offs, and strategic priorities. When it became clear that the corporate vision and mission required definition, we expanded our scope to deliver that framework seamlessly.
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3
Structured the strategy around ownership
Translated workshop outputs into core strategic themes, SMART goals, and roughly 20 initiatives, each assigned to a specific executive rather than left as an unassigned, shared priority.
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4
Produced high-utility operational blueprints
Delivered both a concise, one-page strategic growth plan and a comprehensive, long-form blueprint, providing leadership with a functional matrix for daily decision-making and a clear narrative to communicate company-wide.
Value Delivered
A five-year strategy the leadership team co-authored, and now operationalizes.
Established the organization's first enterprise strategy in decades
Developed a five-year strategic growth blueprint that clearly defines the organization's trajectory, replacing decades of ad-hoc, reactive decision-making.
Instilled executive ownership across all strategic initiatives
Assigned direct executive accountability to each strategic milestone, eliminating the ambiguity of shared or unowned corporate priorities.
Aligned a newly formed executive team around a singular vision
Transformed a newly assembled leadership team into a unified body with a clear, collective definition of where the business is going and why.
Developed a sustainable strategy framework
Equipped the organization with a sustainable, repeatable playbook to refresh and adapt their plan internally as the market evolves.
Results that reflect the work behind them.
20
Strategic initiatives defined with assigned executive owners
30 years
of informal, experience-based decision-making replaced by the organization's first structured enterprise strategy
4 month
engagement timeline to design, align, and deliver the full five-year enterprise strategy
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Work With Us
The firms that move fastest don’t wait for clarity. They create it.
We help leadership teams cut their ambiguity, align around what matters, and build the momentum to transform their business.