Management and Business Planning Consultants - Outline of Services.

Business Planning & Management Consulting Services

InsideOut are business planning and management consultants. Our expertise is in strategy and planning, marketing, and online development. This section covers our business planning and management consulting services in more detail.

Key Services: Accelerated Strategy Development, Business Planning, Profit Improvement, Strategic Facilitation, Organisational Development

Accelerated Strategy Development Process™
Over the last 5 years InsideOut has developed and refined the way business planning is done. Through our work with leading organisations and consultancy practices we have reworked the business planning process. Our approach, the Accelerated Strategy Development Process results in a higher engagement and commitment to the plan by a wider team within the business. The process requires a smaller time commitment, is completed sooner, and is more action oriented than a traditional business planning process.
The key differences between our Accelerated Strategy Development Process and traditional business planning are;

• We involve more people in the process - not just the exec team but a group twice to three times this size can be included in the process.
• Smaller planning sessions - typically we work with a series of two or three half day planning sessions rather than a two day retreat. We believe that this keeps the team more focused on the issues, less stressed about other things whether they are work or personal commitments and also allows thinking to develop between sessions.
• Facilitation & Process - as we have developed some specific tools that allow us to move quickly to a decision point which helps us keep things moving. In saying this sometimes things just need to be talked through and that is also a value of the planning process.
• Quarterly Planning Cycle - we like to detail a plan for the next 90 days. This gives clear focus on what is important and what needs to be worked on right now.

We work with you prior to starting this process to complete an strategic diagnostic where we interview key members of the team, collect information on your competitive position and prepare the team for the process. The benefits of this approach are; a high team involvement, it encourages constructive conflict to uncover new options, fast filtering of alternatives, a lower cost than full retreat options and it develops strong commitment to implementation.

Strategy Diagnostic
If you're unsure where to start a strategy diagnostic can help you determine the right way forward. This diagnostic assessment uses the same standardised approach used for all of our strategy assignments but it is deployed on faster more focused scale. This would involve one on one interviews with two to three of your key staff, a facilitated SWOT session with your team and a review of any existing business plan, marketing materials or product plans. A report is then prepared detailing the key focus areas and the recommended next steps. more...

Business Planning
Whether you need to raise capital or want to be more confident about your future, a business plan will give your business a clear focus and direction. It will help galvanise your team and get them working on the important rather than the urgent. The aim is build an understanding of the current environment and then develop a plan that looks competitively and strategically at how to develop a competitive advantage and compelling proposition that will take the business forward. The process will include facilitated workshops  with the team to debate and build a robust vision of the future. Finally a comprehensive plan that includes a timeline for the key activities will be completed.
Typically Includes;

• Business Audit
• 3 Strategy Sessions with your team
• Plan Documentation
• Financials and Timeline as required.

Profit Improvement Plan
A profit improvement plan is appropriate when the business has a clear strategic direction or has perhaps completed a prior strategic planning session. More analytical in focus, a profit improvement plan seeks to complete an objective analysis of your business to understand your drivers of profitability. This would involve an audit, a planning session and financial modeling. We work with cost engineers who can analyse and reduce your fixed administrative expenditure. Lastly where marketing is a significant expenditure we can implement a Marketing ROI programme to improve the results from this area.
Typically Includes;

• Business Audit
• Planning Session
• Cost Engineering
• Financial Modeling
• Marketing ROI Implementation

Strategic Facilitation
We can facilitate planning sessions or large groups. We regularly work with groups from as small as two or three up to 150. Generally these sessions are geared around sharing ideas, getting feedback and brainstorming a new approach. We can work with you to design a session for your planning session, team building event or innovation workshop.

Organisational Development
When a new strategic direction is embarked on there is a significant people component to manage. This may require organisational design advise or new training programmes to support the changes being made. InsideOut will either develop programmes to assist in these areas or where the requirements are significant, we work with partners to manage more demanding programmes of work.

Project Management
Where are project's requirements are outside of the normal scope and capabilities of your team, InsideOut can be engaged to plan and control the execution of strategically vital projects.