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Decision Resources for Strategy Leaders

For strategy leaders

Readiness scores, frameworks and scenarios for the commitments strategy teams prepare: market entry, investment cases and board recommendations.

Strategy work is judged at the moment of commitment. These resources are for the weeks before that moment: scoring how ready the decision really is, mapping the assumptions the case depends on, and strengthening the recommendation before the board tests it, or worse, does not.

Pressure-test a live decision

When a decision in your function is heading for sign-off, put it to selected senior operators from the Global Board and receive a confidential report before you commit.

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For strategy

Free Decision Tools

Score a specific live decision: readiness, risk and perspective coverage, checked before budget, resources or reputation are committed.

Tool

Decision Readiness Score

A ten-question scorecard that shows whether an important decision is ready for sign-off, or whether the evidence, alignment and challenge behind it need more work.

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Tool

Independent Perspective Gap Analyser

A ten-point check that shows which perspectives have actually been consulted on a specific decision, and which voices the recommendation has never heard.

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Tool

Consultant Proposal Checklist

Twelve structural checks for a consulting proposal, from named delivery teams to exit criteria, that show whether you are buying a defined engagement or an open-ended relationship.

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Tool

Market Entry Readiness Score

Ten questions that test whether a market entry rests on evidence from the target market or on assumptions imported from home, before the investment becomes irreversible.

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Tool

Business Case Stress Test

Ten structural questions that reveal whether a business case is built to be examined or built to be approved, answered from your knowledge of the case with nothing uploaded.

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Tool

M&A Decision Risk Score

Ten questions that measure where an acquisition is carrying risk, from synergy confidence to diligence completeness, while the terms can still reflect the answers.

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All free decision tools
For strategy

Decision Guides

Practical preparation for high-stakes decision moments, from vendor selection and consulting proposals to market entry and M&A.

Guide

Before Hiring a Consulting Firm

A decision guide for executives about to sign a consulting engagement letter. It covers the gap between the pitch team and the delivery team, the economics of extensions, and the questions that expose a weak proposal before it becomes a weak engagement.

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Guide

Before Entering a New Market

For leadership teams weighing geographic or segment expansion. This guide covers the difference between addressable and reachable demand, the channel economics that sink entries, and why the exit criteria matter more than the entry plan.

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Guide

Before Presenting to the Board

For executives finalising a board paper or investment committee presentation. This guide covers framing the ask precisely, presenting genuine options rather than decoys, and surfacing the dissent the board will otherwise discover for itself.

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Guide

Before an M&A Decision

For boards and corporate development teams approaching a signing decision. This guide covers the synergy numbers set before diligence, the integration questions deferred until after close, and the deal-fever dynamics that make stopping feel more expensive than proceeding.

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Guide

Before Launching a Product

For product, commercial and executive teams approaching a launch decision. This guide covers the difference between internal enthusiasm and demand evidence, the channel and support readiness that launches assume, and the kill criteria that almost no launch plan contains.

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Guide

Before a Strategic Partnership or Joint Venture

A guide for executives structuring a partnership or joint venture, covering mismatched time horizons, how contributions get valued, deadlock design, channel conflict and the partnership that is really an acquisition.

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All decision guides
For strategy

Decision Playbooks

Step-by-step playbooks for major decisions, with each step linked to the tool, template or framework that does the work.

Playbook

Hiring a Consulting Firm

A step-by-step playbook for hiring a consulting firm: defining the problem before firms shape it, designing a competition they cannot steer, negotiating the team rather than the rate, and deciding the ending in advance.

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Playbook

Entering a New Market

A step-by-step market entry playbook covering win conditions and walk-away criteria, bottom-up demand work, regulatory sequencing, route-to-market economics, local price testing and staged investment.

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All decision playbooks
For strategy

Templates

Copyable decision artefacts (memos, risk registers, scorecards and checklists) ready to use without lead capture.

Template

Board Decision Review Checklist

A ten-point checklist for directors and sponsors to run against any decision reaching the board, covering evidence, alternatives, dissent and reversibility.

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Template

Market Entry Validation Checklist

A checklist that pairs every market entry assumption with the evidence that would validate it, so enthusiasm for the market is tested before capital follows it.

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Template

Business Case Template

A section-by-section business case skeleton where each part carries a statement of what it must establish, so the finished document persuades by evidence rather than by length.

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Template

Decision Memo Template

A section-by-section decision memo skeleton covering decision requested, options, evidence, risks, dependencies, recommendation and reversibility, with guidance on writing each part.

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Template

Executive Brief Template

A one-page executive brief skeleton: headline, situation, decision required, options, risks and the ask, with a length budget and a job description for every section.

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Template

Board Paper Template

A section-by-section board paper skeleton with guidance for each part: the decision sought, background held to one page, options with the rejected ones shown, financials, risks and a recommendation that takes a position.

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All templates
For strategy

Decision Frameworks

Established frameworks explained through a decision-quality lens: how to apply them, and how they get gamed in practice.

Framework

SWOT Analysis

SWOT sorts a decision into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Done honestly it surfaces what the business case is avoiding; done politically it becomes a justification exercise.

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Framework

PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE examines six external forces (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental) that can reshape a decision after it is signed. It is worth running only when each factor is tied to a specific commitment, not recited as macro trends.

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Framework

Porter's Five Forces

Michael Porter's framework explains why some industries reward entrants and others destroy them, by examining five structural forces that govern profitability. It is the sharpest tool available for challenging an optimistic market entry case.

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Framework

DACI Decision Model

DACI assigns four roles to a single decision: a Driver who moves it forward, one Approver who makes the call, Contributors who supply input, and the Informed who are told the outcome. It exists to kill decision-by-committee.

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Framework

RAPID Decision Framework

Bain's RAPID framework assigns five decision roles (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide) so that large organisations can make consequential calls without every stakeholder holding an implicit veto.

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Framework

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Cost-benefit analysis compares the full cost of a decision against its expected benefits to test whether it creates value. The technique is sound; the inputs are where advocacy does its work.

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All decision frameworks
For strategy

Market Landscapes

Criteria-based orientation for buyers navigating advisory, platform and services categories. No paid rankings, no invented scores.

Landscape

Market Research Agencies

An orientation guide to the market research agency landscape: the provider types, what determines whether the findings can bear the weight of a decision, and the questions that expose weak methodology.

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Landscape

Expert Networks

A map of the expert network market for buyers who need primary insight without compliance exposure: network types, screening and confidentiality criteria, and the risks the category rarely advertises.

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Landscape

Strategy Consulting Firms

An orientation map of the strategy consulting market: firm types, how leverage models decide who actually works on your problem, and the questions that separate judgement from brand.

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Landscape

Data and Analytics Consultancies

A map of the data and analytics consulting market: provider types, why so many engagements end in dashboards nobody opens, and the capability-transfer test that separates partners from permanent fixtures.

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All market landscapes
For strategy

Comparisons

Concept-level comparisons of the routes open to you: suite vs best-of-breed, in-house vs consulting, build vs buy.

Comparison

In-House vs Consulting

Build the capability inside or bring in a firm: the choice looks financial but is really about speed, knowledge retention and whose incentives you want in the room.

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Comparison

Expert Network vs Independent Advisory

Expert networks connect you to individuals for paid calls; independent advisory puts a specific decision to senior people and returns structured challenge. Different instruments for different jobs.

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Comparison

AI Analysis vs Human Judgement

AI analysis and experienced human judgement are good at different parts of the same decision. Treating them as rivals wastes the strengths of both; the real question is how to divide the work.

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Comparison

Build vs Buy

Building software commits you to a product organisation you may not intend to run; buying commits you to a vendor's roadmap. This comparison lays out both commitments honestly.

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Comparison

Global Firm vs Boutique

The global firm brings reach, benches and a brand the board recognises; the boutique brings the partner you met and little else in the way of dilution. Both facts cut both ways.

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All comparisons
For strategy

Decision Patterns

The recurring dynamics underneath difficult decisions: false consensus, split rooms, conflicted experts, stalled calls.

Pattern

When Consensus Fails

Some decisions never produce agreement, however many workshops are run. This pattern looks at why consensus breaks down on precisely the questions that matter most, and how organisations decide well without it.

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Pattern

When the Data Conflicts

The research points one way, the pipeline points the other, and both decks were produced by competent people. This pattern explains why conflicting data recurs and how to decide when the numbers refuse to agree.

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Pattern

When Executives Disagree

Two members of the leadership team hold opposing positions, and everything beneath them has started to stall. This pattern examines why top-level disagreement persists and how to resolve it without a casualty.

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Pattern

When AI Disagrees with Humans

The model recommends one option and the leadership team prefers another. This pattern looks at what that divergence actually means, and how organisations decide without deferring blindly or overriding in silence.

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Pattern

When Time Is Short

The offer expires Friday, the board meets once more this year, and the analysis is half-finished. This pattern examines what deadline pressure does to decision quality, and how to protect judgement when the clock is real.

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Pattern

When Uncertainty Is High

The forecasts diverge by an order of magnitude and the third round of analysis has landed no closer. This pattern covers how organisations mishandle genuine uncertainty, and how experienced leaders commit inside it.

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All decision patterns
For strategy

Decision Scenarios

Recognisable executive moments and how to navigate them: a split board, a bold consultancy recommendation, a frozen budget.

Scenario

Board Split on an Acquisition

Half the board sees a strategic necessity, half sees an overpriced distraction, and the chair sees a vote that will damage someone whichever way it falls. This scenario looks at what a split board actually needs before it decides.

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Scenario

AI Recommends One Option, Leadership Prefers Another

An analytics or AI system the organisation paid to trust has produced a recommendation the executive team does not like. This scenario is about resolving that standoff without pretending either side is neutral.

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Scenario

Competitor Enters Your Core Market

A well-funded entrant has landed in the segment that pays for everything else you do. The instinct is to respond fast and visibly. This scenario is about responding correctly.

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Scenario

Customer Research Conflicts With Internal Beliefs

Commissioned customer research has contradicted the assumptions a strategy was built on, and the organisation must now choose between its evidence and its identity. This scenario is about making that choice deliberately.

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Scenario

The Board Wants an AI Strategy

A non-executive asks the question, the CEO promises a paper, and the strategy team inherits a brief with no problem statement attached. This scenario is about answering the board without commissioning a performance.

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Scenario

A Major Client Demands a Price Cut

The letter is polite, the deadline is short and the account is too big to lose. This scenario is about what the demand reveals, what the account team's fear does to the analysis, and the options between capitulation and defiance.

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All decision scenarios
For strategy

Business Calculators

Run the numbers: simple, honest arithmetic for ROI, payback, total vendor cost and risk exposure.

Calculator

ROI Calculator

A simple ROI calculator that turns an investment cost and an expected benefit into a percentage return, with a plain account of what that percentage cannot see.

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Calculator

Opportunity Cost Calculator

Estimate the value a delayed decision forfeits by combining the opportunity value, its probability of success and the months of delay.

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Calculator

Risk Exposure Calculator

Multiply the estimated impact of a risk by its probability to get an expected exposure figure, together with a clear warning about what expected values conceal on one-off decisions.

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Calculator

Cost of Delay Calculator

Puts a monthly price on a decision that has been pushed to next quarter, so the cost of the queue can be argued about alongside the cost of acting.

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All business calculators
For strategy

Assessment Centre

Score your organisation rather than a single decision: maturity across digital, AI, data, procurement, marketing and the board.

Assessment

AI Readiness Assessment

Eight questions that separate organisations prepared to run AI in production from those prepared to talk about it, covering use cases, data, governance, risk, oversight, ownership, vendors and adoption.

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Assessment

Innovation Readiness Assessment

Eight questions on whether your innovation effort is structured to produce commercial outcomes: problem selection, portfolio focus, validation, funding gates, experiments, leadership tolerance, scaling and learning.

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Assessment

Board Effectiveness Assessment

Eight questions on how your board actually functions when it matters: decision clarity, evidence quality, challenge culture, risk visibility, agenda discipline, information quality, follow-through and independent input.

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All assessment centre
For strategy

Glossary

Decision, procurement and transformation terms defined plainly, including where each concept gets misused in practice.

Glossary

Business Case

The structured argument for an investment: costs, benefits, risks and options, assembled to support an approval decision. In most organisations, it is authored by the people who want the answer to be yes.

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Glossary

Operating Model

How an organisation arranges people, processes, technology and governance to deliver what its strategy promises. The layer where strategy either becomes real or fails to, without anything visibly breaking.

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Glossary

Stakeholder Alignment

The degree to which the people affected by a decision, and needed to execute it, genuinely agree on the problem, the chosen option and its consequences. Often declared; less often real.

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Glossary

Sensitivity Analysis

The practice of varying a model's key assumptions to see how much the answer moves. The difference between a forecast that informs a decision and a single number that merely decorates one.

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Glossary

Sunk Cost

Money, time or effort already spent and unrecoverable regardless of what happens next. Rationally irrelevant to any forward-looking decision, and rhetorically decisive in a remarkable number of them.

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Glossary

Decision Rights

The explicit allocation of who recommends, who must be consulted, who decides and who can veto for a given class of decisions. Cheap to define, expensive to leave undefined.

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All glossary

The decision is yours. The blind spots need not be.

Request a complimentary first report and bring independent operator perspectives into the next strategy decision before committing budget, resources or reputation.

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