Francesco Gizzi
Strategy
Strategic consulting: what it is, how it works and when a company needs it
"Strategic consulting" is a phrase everyone uses and few can explain precisely. For some it is a fifty-slide document. For others it is a series of workshops with the management team. For others still it is an elegant way of saying "we need someone to tell us what to do". None of these definitions helps a business owner work out whether they really need it.
In more than thirteen years of working with SMEs, startups and scale-ups I have learned that the right question is not "do we need a strategy?". Every company has one, even when nobody has ever written it down: it is the sum of the choices it makes every day. The useful question is a different one. Are the choices we are making consistent with each other, and are they taking us where we want to go?
In this article I explain what strategic consulting is, which signs show you need it, how a practical engagement works and what you should have in hand at the end. We also look at how to tell it apart from business consulting and marketing consulting, and how to assess it before investing.
What strategic consulting is
Strategic consulting is outside support that helps management make three kinds of decisions: where to compete, how to win within that scope and where to concentrate resources that are always limited. The result is not a brilliant idea. It is a set of explicit choices, with priorities, timelines and owners.
In practice a strategy consultant works with management on questions like these:
- which customers, products and markets really generate value and which absorb energy without a proportionate return;
- what positioning the company can defend against its competitors;
- which initiatives should be accelerated, which corrected and which stopped;
- how revenue and margin goals translate into goals for marketing, sales and operations;
- which numbers management needs to look at every month to know whether the course is holding.
The key word is choice. A strategy that gives up nothing is a wish list. A good part of my work consists of helping owners say no in a reasoned way: to a customer segment that does not pay, to a product nobody has the courage to discontinue, to a project launched with enthusiasm and never finished.
When you need it: the signs not to ignore
Not every company needs strategic consulting at every moment. There are, however, recurring situations in which an outside view saves months of trial and error. With clients I often see these signs:
- Growth slows with no clear cause. Revenue has stalled and nobody can say whether the problem is the market, the offer, sales or pricing.
- There are too many open projects. The team works hard, but half the initiatives are left half-done.
- Functions pull in different directions. Marketing chases one type of customer, sales closes another, production would prefer a third.
- The company is entering a new phase. A new partner, a capital increase, a new market, a generational handover, growth from 10 to 30 people.
- Decisions are made on gut feeling. You invest where things "seem" to work, with no numbers to confirm or refute it.
- Revenue grows and margin does not. You sell more, but at the end of the year there is less left in the bank.
If you recognize yourself in at least two of these points, the problem is probably not operational. It is about direction. And a problem of direction is rarely solved by working harder.
How a strategic consulting engagement works
Every consultant has their own method. I describe the one I use, because it makes concrete what happens week after week. The setup phase usually lasts 6 to 12 weeks, then the work continues with regular review meetings.
1. Diagnosis
We start from the numbers and the people. I analyze revenue and margin by customer, product and channel, the state of the sales pipeline, acquisition costs and workloads. In parallel I talk with the owners and with those who lead the key functions, because the numbers tell you what is happening and the people explain why. This phase often coincides with an initial business audit that takes a snapshot of the company before proposing anything.
2. Fundamental choices
With the data on the table, we discuss the alternatives: which segments to cover, which offers to push, where to invest and where to cut. Here the consultant plays an uncomfortable but useful role. They ask the questions nobody inside asks anymore, because the answer would touch established habits or balances.
3. Priorities and roadmap
The choices become 3 to 5 priorities with measurable goals, an owner and a deadline. The final document is a strategic business roadmap that can be read in ten minutes, not a two-hundred-page manual.
4. Implementation and review
Strategy lives in execution. That is why the engagement includes monthly or quarterly meetings in which you look at the indicators, understand what is working and correct course. Without this phase even the best plan ends up in a drawer within six months.
What you get at the end
A good engagement leaves the company with tangible things: a clear summary of where it competes and with what value proposition, a few priorities shared by the management team, a 90-day and 12-month roadmap, a dashboard of indicators to look at every month and a review method the company can keep going on its own.
What you should not expect: a magic formula, guaranteed results in a few weeks or a consultant who decides in your place. Decisions remain with management. The consultant makes them better informed and more consistent with each other. An example from my work: with a proptech startup we went from 0 to 40 B2B customers in 6 months. The credit went not to a brilliant idea, but to clear-cut choices maintained with discipline.
A practical example: when strategy means taking things away
Take a hypothetical B2B services company with €2.5 million in revenue and 20 employees. It serves three types of customer: large companies, SMEs and self-employed professionals. The owner has a very clear feeling: "we work a lot and earn little".
The diagnosis shows a different picture from the one everyone imagined. Professionals account for 25% of revenue but absorb 45% of the team's hours, with a margin close to zero. SMEs have the best margin and a sales cycle of about six weeks. Large companies pay well, but every deal takes months and requires the owner in person.
The strategic choices come down to three:
- focus marketing and sales on SMEs, with an offer designed for them;
- take on large companies only through referrals, without chasing long and costly tenders;
- turn the offer for professionals into a standard package at a higher price, or exit that segment.
In a case like this, even with flat revenue, margin can grow significantly over the following twelve months, because the team stops working at a loss on a third of its customers and frees up time for the ones that pay. None of these choices requires technology or extraordinary investment. It requires looking at the right numbers and deciding.
Strategic, business and marketing consulting: the differences
The boundaries are not sharp, but the underlying differences are clear and help you understand what you need.
- Strategic consulting: works on the choices of direction. Where to compete, with what offer, with what priorities. The horizon runs from one to three years.
- Business consulting: has a broader and more operational scope. It includes organization, processes, management control and efficiency. It often starts from a concrete problem, such as costs out of control or a department that cannot handle the volumes. I cover it on the business consulting page.
- Marketing consulting: works on positioning, channels, campaigns and customer acquisition. It executes an important part of the strategy, but does not replace it.
A common mistake is asking for marketing consulting when the problem is strategic. If the offer is unclear or the segment is wrong, improving the campaigns brings modest results. The reverse is also true: a strategy without a marketing and sales plan stays on paper. That is why in my work I keep the two levels together and always start from the question "what is the real bottleneck?".
How to assess strategic consulting
Before choosing a consultant, ask these questions. The answers say much more than a portfolio.
- Have they worked with companies of your size? A 30-person SME is not managed like a multinational.
- Do they start from your numbers or from a ready-made model applied to everyone?
- Do they explain what they deliver, on what timeline and how the result is measured?
- Do they have operational as well as theoretical experience? Someone who has managed teams and budgets knows the real constraints.
- Do they leave you with a method or make you dependent on their presence?
Mistakes to avoid
Over the years I have seen strategy engagements fail almost always for the same reasons:
- looking for a consultant to validate decisions already made, rather than to test them;
- expecting strategy to solve day-to-day execution problems that require other interventions;
- involving only the owner and not the people who lead the functions, who will then have to apply the choices;
- writing the plan and never reviewing it;
- choosing the consultant only on the basis of the daily rate, without looking at what they deliver.
Where to begin
If you think your company needs more direction, the first step is not signing up for a project. It is a conversation about your numbers and current priorities. From there it becomes clear whether you need a structured engagement or whether a few targeted interventions are enough.
You can find the details of my approach on the page dedicated to strategic consulting for SMEs and startups. If your company is based in Rome we can also work in person; you can read more about how my strategic consulting works. Write to me and tell me where your company stands today: I will tell you frankly whether and how I can help.
FAQ
How long does a strategic consulting engagement last?
The setup phase usually lasts 6 to 12 weeks, covering diagnosis, choices and roadmap. After that it is worth planning monthly or quarterly meetings to check results and correct course.
Is strategic consulting useful for a small business too?
Yes, often even more so, because in a small business every misused resource weighs more. The engagement must be sized accordingly, though: fewer documents, more concrete decisions.
What is the difference between strategic consulting and business consulting?
Strategic consulting works on the choices of direction: where to compete, with what offer, with what priorities. Business consulting has a more operational scope and also covers processes, organization and management control.
What do I need to prepare before starting?
The data you already have is enough: revenue by customer and product, margins, main costs and the status of sales deals. If the data is incomplete, the first phase also serves to put it in order.