How to use these 3 proven strategy frameworks

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Hey there - it's Brian 👋

I’ve had a lot of managers call when they’re stuck on a big decision.

They think through options. Go back and forth through pros and cons. And try to choose.

Is that how you decide for your business too?

It makes sense because that’s how you make small decisions.

But when you put that thinking to your business decisions it breaks. Big business decisions are so much more complex.

Here’s the part managers miss: finding the right way to frame your information so the solution becomes obvious.

So today, I want to give you a behind the scenes on the 3 specific strategy frameworks we used the most with our Fortune 500 clients (to make their hardest decisions).

Steal them to make decisions easier and faster for you too.

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

Let’s make strategy frameworks simple

The good news is consultants are professional decision-makers. We get called in every time a decision is too complex.

Half the art is deciding the framework.

These tools apply to you if you are:
• Entering a new market (new country, new geography, new customer group)
• Creating your business strategy/plan
• Launching a new product/service
• Re-positioning your business

So these are the 3 proven strategy frameworks we actually use with Fortune 500s to help them make their biggest decisions:

1. Strategic Choice Cascade:

The Strategic Choice Cascade is the most basic strategy framework. Use this when you want to build the strategy for your business.

Use this framework when you’re:
• Entering a new country
• Launching a new product/service
• Re-positioning your current business

Michael Porter is the author of the most widely respected book on strategy called, “Competitive Strategy.”

Side note: I’m biased. I worked in Porter’s consulting group.

Anyway, you “win” in the marketplace by doing things differently than your competitors in a way your customers value. This creates a competitive moat around your business.

The Choice Cascade is your most basic tool to choose your competitive moat.

I’ve written about the cascade in more detail in this overview on how to build your strategy, but here’s an overview of the 5 parts to the cascade:

1) Aspiration:
What’s your vision?

2) Where to Play:
Which markets (customers, geographies, offerings)?

3) How to Win:
How will you deliver unique value?

4) Capabilities:
What people, process, tech do you need to execute?

5) Management Systems:
How will you maintain your advantage?

2. The Ambition Matrix:

For clients who wanted to expand, we’d use the ambition matrix to plot the offers they currently have, and their new ideas.

We made sure their offerings aligned with their vision.

For example if they were too safe, but had a big vision? We challenged them to push further out on the ambition matrix.

Use this framework when you’re: adding new products / services.

3 categories:
1) Core:
Sell what you currently have, to customers you already have.

2) Adjacent:
Sell new variations of things you have

3) Transformational:
Create new things for customers that didn’t know they need it

The ambition matrix helps you figure out: are your actions as big as your vision?

3. BCG Growth-Share Matrix:

Now if you’re looking at your offerings and deciding which to focus on / which not to, that’s where the Growth-Shares strategy framework comes in.

Take each offering (product/service) and plot it on two things: how much cash is it making you? How fast is it growing?

Use this framework when you’re: deciding which of your offerings your ignore vs focus on.

Each offering (product/service) falls into one of 4 buckets:

🦮 Dogs (Slow growth, low cash flow):
It’s not growing fast. You’re not winning a lot of the market. Get out.

🐄 Cash Cows (slow growth, high cash flow):
You won a lot of the market with this offering. But it’s not growing fast. So use the money from it and invest it in stars and question marks.

⭐️ Stars (high growth, high cash flow):
Growing fast and winning a lot of the market. These are the businesses you focus on.

❓Question Marks (low growth, high cash flow):
It’s growing fast, but not winning a lot of the market yet. We don’t know how it’ll play out. Focus on these depending on how likely you think it is to become a “star.”

🤓 Nerd rant. Honorable mentions:

I’m such a strategy nerd that I couldn’t resist including a few more strategy frameworks.

Each consulting firm is known for making their own.

Off the top of my head:
Deloitte: Five Forces. Value Chain. 10 Types of Innovation
McKinsey: Three Horizons
Bain: Elements of Value
BCG: Growth Shares

Reply if you want a deep dive on a specific framework or real examples of where we used it (& how you can use it).

Choose the strategy framework that makes your decision easy

A lot of leaders struggle to make decisions because they don’t have a clear way to organize the information.

Depending on which problem you have, there’s a framework to lay out your information and make your choices faster and easier.

And that’s it!

See you next Thurs,

Brian
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More resources:

• What is strategy?
• Guide to building your strategy
• How to make your strategy docs