STRATEGIES

ABOUT OUR STRATEGIES

Are your competitors talking about you in their boardrooms? Does your strategy guide how you allocate resources? Can every employee articulate your strategy and are they empowered to execute on it? At AI Group, we see strategy as much more than a plan. Since AI Group's founding, strategy has been our core business. We work with companies in every industry to develop strategies that deliver results.

What works in one industry may not work in another. That’s why we strive to know them all, inside and out. Our people are experienced, real-world professionals who provide practical perspectives and solutions. So you can avoid pitfalls, minimize risk and gain an edge.

For more than 30 years, AI Group's superior capabilities have helped thousands of clients in every industry develop and deliver winning strategies.

• We see things that others miss, offering you more creative solutions that combine our deep geographic experience, intimate sector knowledge and clear insights into how to create value in your business.
• We work collaboratively, build lasting capabilities into your team and help your organization mobilize for change.
• We define our success by your results. We care deeply about our clients. We enjoy our work―and we have fun doing it.

AI Group's strategy experts help clients with their most complex strategic challenges. We build tailored solutions to help clients achieve sustained growth and emphasize mobilization from day one. We begin by helping clients choose where to focus so they can outexecute and outinvest their competitors―and ultimately generate higher returns.

AI Group’s Strategy practice is anchored by seven AI Group Beliefs on strategy:

• There are few bad businesses, but many bad strategies. Returns are generated by delighting customers and beating the competition, not by pursuing hot markets.
• Good strategies create a path to leadership economics. In a correctly-defined business, one or two competitors with superior economics, enabled by strong leadership, usually capture the profit pool. The paradox of leadership is that the strongest companies are often the furthest from achieving their full potential.
• A company’s first priority should be unlocking the full potential of the core. Strategy is the science of allocating scarce resources. Companies that are sustained value creators know their core and focus their resources on attaining full potential before pursuing adjacency―and then only with ruthless discipline.
• Leadership starts with competitive advantage. Strategies lacking a sharp definition of how to win, relative to the industry’s rules of the game, seldom return their cost of capital. Leadership requires companies to combine superior capabilities and assets to form strong, repeatable differentiation.
• Customer advocacy is the acid test of competitive advantage. Most companies fail to deliver a superior customer proposition; however, sustained value creators are twice as likely to get it right. But no matter how good your proposition, low cost is critical to staying competitive and fueling reinvestment.
• A good strategy is one that can be implemented. The reason many strategies don’t deliver results is the failure to change behaviors. Winning strategies are designed for and with the front line and are understood throughout the organization, not just in the board room.
• Repeatable Models® deliver enduring success. Successful companies build Repeatable Models with well-defined core differentiation, clear non-negotiables that embed the strategy at the front line and feedback loops to adapt continuously and delight their customers more, at an ever lower cost.