Achieving
Full Potential
Through strategies that work
Does
This Sound Like Your Organization?
We
are not content with our status quo.
We want to maximize our performance.
We value breakthrough creativity.
If it does!
Business Unlimited is the answer:
Business Unlimited will help you out-think and
out-perform your competitors.
Business Unlimited will customize unique, long-term
solutions not pre-packaged all-purpose remedies.
Business Unlimited will deliver realistic and
practical strategies that are rooted in your organization’s
unique capabilities.
Business Unlimited will help build commitment
within your organization.
Business Unlimited will put you in control of
the process cycle; And help you build confidence
in your performance.
Business Unlimited make clear sense of the return
you expect from your investment and you will be
able to turn the learning into a repeatable process.
Getting
it right
Business Unlimited believes in asking the right
questions, addressing the right issues and discovering
and helping to implement the right solutions.
Then we support you to achieve the maximum results.
Achieving real results is as important to us as
it is to you. We will not accept your assignment
unless we believe we can work with you to deliver
sustainable success.
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1-
Business Unlimited
2 - The Paradox
3 - facing a tougher Business environment
4 - Most growth companies fail to
earn more than their cost of capital
5 - The Myth of implementation
6 - Keeping an external focus
7 - the four Key strategic questions
8 - How Good Could it get?
9 - putting it all together
10 – The Galaxy of consulting
firms
11 – The formula Orientation
12 – The Share Performance
13– Client Care
14 – Contingency Fees
15 – Ethos
16 – We measure our performance
by your Results
17 - profiting from turbulences
shifting market forces create new opportunities
to lead
18 – creating momentum
19 - achieving full potential
20 – Reaching new markets
21 - Perpetuating SUCCESS
1-
Business Unlimited
Business Unlimited has helped clients conceive
and put into practice many of the most successful
business strategies of the past decade, from turnarounds
to high-growth breakouts. That's why the bulk
of our business comes from prior clients or from
referrals. We pride ourselves on being practical,
empirical, optimistic, and eager to pitch in.
The only success that counts for us are the results
our clients achieve. Business Unlimited is one
of the world's leading international strategy
consulting firms. Its professionals serve major
multinational and other organizations through
a global network of offices worldwide. Its fact-based
, “outside-in”approach is unique,
and its immense experience base, developed over
20 years, covers a complete range of critical
business issues in every economical sector. Our
entire approach is based on two guiding principles:
-
Working in true collaboration with clients on
customized and implementable strategies that
yield significant, measurable and sustained
results, and
-
developing processes that strengthen a client’s
organization and create lasting competitive
advantage.
The
firm gauges its success solely by its client’s
achievements.
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2
- The Paradox
If asked, most executives would agree that strategy
is central to business success. They operate on
the assumption that a company can forge its own
destiny, that it isn't at the mercy of economic
events or market conditions. When CEO's reflect
on a particular corporate success or failure,
they invariably point to a handful of decisions
that proved critical to the outcome. Indeed, one
survey found that over 75 % of the executives
polled attributed changes in a company's financial
performance more to management decisions and practices
than to all outside factors combined.
A good strategy, properly implemented, will produce
superior returns. Every business should have a
strategy - and yet, amazingly, many don't. A true
strategy must inform virtually all decisions -
on where to invest, how to respond to competitors,which
new capabilities to create, what to do at eight
o'clock Monday morning. Making business decisions
without a strategy is like trying to navigate
without a compass, stars, or unlimited destination.
While
everyone acknowledges the importance of strategy,
few companies have strategies that actually work.
WHY IS THIS SO?
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3
- facing a tougher Business environment
Since
the mid - 1970’s, the business environment
has become dramatically less forgiving of companies
that don't have a clear strategy and that don't
have the right strategy.
Returns
for major industrial companies have been declining
steadily for the past 30 years.
Recent Business Unlimited analysis found that
only 7 % of U.S. companies and 6 % of European
companies qualified as “sustained, profitable
growth companies” over the course of eight
years period. In fact, most growth companies fail
to earn more than their cost of capital.
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4
- Most growth companies fail to earn more than
their cost of capital
The number of industries experiencing fundamental
structural change has increased from 15 % of the
total universe two decades ago to 55 % today.Turbulence
in an industry typically creates conditions out
of which emerge bigger winners and bigger losers
than before. We have documented this phenomenon
in businesses dissimilar as telecommunications,
financial services, retailing, computers, health
care and transportation.
The
experience of our clients leads us to believe
that market share has become more fluid and has
the potential to shift more quickly than would
have been thought possible a few years ago. As
a consequence, strategy can no longer be what
it once may have been, something you develop in
a formal exercise every three years or so and
then put in a binder on a shelf. As business accelerates
in the 21st century, strategy must be what you
live every day.
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5
- The Myth of implementation
In the light of rapid pace of change, it hardly
makes sense to think of implementation as something
apart from, or independent of, the underlying
strategy. If you have a strategy you can't execute,
you don't have strategy at all.
The bulk of strategies actually achieve less than
50 % of what they initially set out to accomplish.
Analysis of this “yield loss” indicates
that the most common cause is a failure to anticipate
and provide for how difficult implementation will
prove for the organization. It's like making up
a battle plan without taking into account the
readiness of your troops or the security of your
supply lines.
At
Business Unlimited, we work with our clients to
explicitly calculate their organization's capacity
to implement, and then to factor this capacity
into the development of their strategy from the
beginning. In this way management can choose the
appropriate level of difficulty or risk, and also
think about the organizational capabilities that
may need to be strengthened or obtained from outside
in order to achieve high confidence implementation.
The
payoff can be huge. A strategy only 80 % perfect
but fully implemented almost always proves more
valuable than an intellectually perfect strategy
that is implemented incompletely.
IF
YOU HAVE A STRATEGY YOU CAN'T EXECUTE;
YOU DON'T HAVE STRATEGY AT ALL.
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6
- Keeping an external focus
Review of high - performance management teams
indicates that the best maintain an external focus;
they spend their time gathering new data, discussing
and exchanging them as a prerequisite to taking
action. Low - performance teams, by contrast,
are more internally focused; they spend a much
larger proportion of their time exchanging opinion
and looking within.
The
most dramatic losses in strategic position can
often be traced to the fact that a company had
an inadequate base of facts about what was going
on in their market, or that it neglected to interpret
and act on new information about customers or
competitors. On the other hand, some of the most
successful companies today achieved highly profitable
differentiation precisely because of their ability
to gather and respond to marketplace information
faster than their competitors. In a changing market,
they always get the first chance to stake out
the best strategic ground.
In
our work with clients we’ve found that fresh,
penetration data on the outside world - especially
on competitors capabilities and the switching
behavior of customers - represent an essential
and powerful competitive weapon.
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7
- the four Key strategic questions
From what we've seen, nearly 80 % of the variation
in profitability across business is a function
not of the industry a particular business is in,
or its environment, but rather of its competitive
position and performance within its industry.
We have also observed that in most industries
two or three participants earn their cost of capital
over a full investment cycle; the majority of
participants earn less, destroying value. Which
is why there's a sharp competitive focus on the
four questions
that in our view, every business strategy must
answer:
1
- Where should I choose to compete?
2 - Who should my core customer be?
3 - How should I differentiate myself competitively?
4 - How should I discourage competitive investment?
Simple,
timeless questions. The challenge is obtaining
full, rigorous, up-to-date information with which
to answer them.
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8
- How Good Could it get?
How
valuable can a successful strategy be to a business?
Is devising one worth the trouble, the work, the
risk? We believe that in working with a client
to develop a strategy it's important to calculate
the full economical potential of its business.
This potential typically consists of at least
four components:
1- Its full operating
potential: what kind of margins and costs could
be realized given the competitive position it
should be able to achieve?
2-
Its full strategic potential: what kind of market
share could it command? How fast can its segment
of the market grow
3-
Its full expansion potential: What business “adjacencies”
might it move into, and what kind of reinvestment
rates would be required to do this?
4-
Its redevelopment potential: Is the business likely
to be worth more to someone else? Why?
Going
through this analysis helps focus the strategy
process on what is most important economically.
It also compels a discussion of the broadest range
of options, and helps build a consensus on the
answers to the most critical questions that management
must decide. Questions like “What are the
benefits - and the costs - of more market share?”
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9
- putting it all together
At
Business Unlimited, our overall approach to strategy
is supported by a full range of a proprietary
techniques and diagnostic tools for special purposes
ranging from analyzing potential acquisitions
to reducing complexity to improving productivity
in service businesses. We find, though, that the
real value of these techniques comes from clearly
orchestrating their use in the context of a powerful
strategy.
Great strategy arises from data, thought, discussion,
experience, and insight. To marshal each of these
at the appropriate time, we have evolved a process
consisting of five
overlapping stages:
Phase
I: Determination of objectives and development
of a strategic fact base.
Phase II: Generation of hypotheses and subsequent,
focused external analysis.
Phase III: Assessment of full potential and the
development of options.
Phase
IV: Evaluation of options, decision on strategy,
and pressure testing of the choice under various
scenarios.
Phase V: Implementation planning, preparation,
and follow-through.
Executed
well, this approach to strategy can lead your
organization on a pathway of sustained results.
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10
– The Galaxy of consulting firms
In the galaxy of management consulting firms,
Business Unlimited appears one of a pattern of
stars which pulsates more strongly than it might
do, having regard to physical measurements such
as age and mass.
The
phenomenon is attracting the attention of growing
number of observers. Professors Patrick Wilkinson
and John Yashima, authoring a paper on Business
Unlimited which was published by Harvard Business
School in October 1997, drew comparisons between
Business Unlimited and other luminaries in the
consulting field such as McKinsey, Bain and BCG.
Distinctive features such as a strategy focus
and a results oriented were attributed to Business
Unlimited, but the professors were unable to reach
a concise conclusion. This has its advantages
from our point of view. after all, if the differentiating
factor is that there is more to Business Unlimited
than meets the eye, but pinning it down would
be beyond a microscope's optics, what better brand-
imaging can you get?
Converting
in 1989 to an employee-owned organization in the
style of a partnership, Business Unlimited then
advanced during 1990 - 2001 at about 30% p.a.,
a higher rate than for any other major strategy
consultancy.
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11
– The formula Orientation
Business
Unlimited seem to have a settled formula orientation,
but what makes Business Unlimited present-day
different from all the others?
The main elements, (though not in any order),
are:
- The
significance attached by Business Unlimited
to producing measurable improvements in the
client’s results, frequently quoted by
share price.
- A
unique definition of “client care”.
- The
firm's involvement in contingency fee billing.
- The
firm's ethos, or the spirit that moves it
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12
– The Share Performance
Business Unlimited focuses on large, companies,
where the results can be out of proportion to
the leverage which their consultants can exert
or, in other words, where the ROI looks very good
even taking account of the relatively high fees
necessarily charged. The preoccupation with share
price reflects Business Unlimited’s view
that the environment for quoted companies is a
jungle, having both predators and prey. Any clients
in such a situation needs at least protection,
but an even better strategy is to see the share
escalate so that the client, in turn can become
an acquirer (preferably acting within a framework
of strategically-governed choices). Business Unlimited
therefore looks very much to create sustainable
competitive advantages through successfully implemented
strategies, which will impinge favorably on the
share price.
The
share price is monitored before, during and after
an assignment to measure the scale of the improvement
sustained. It is recognized of course, that any
improvement essentially stems from the clients’
own actions, albeit with Business Unlimited’s
advice and support.
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13–
Client Care
A distinctive feature of Business Unlimited’s
consulting philosophy, is its long-term interest
in the client and the care it takes to avoid conflicts
of interest with others. Since the full effects
of strategy consulting are long-term, it follows
that it is in the client’s interest to have
Business Unlimited working for them over what
ever time it takes to see strategic changes come
to fruition (in terms, for example, of an enduring
improvement in stock-market status). The feature
is described as “relationship marketing”.
Plagiarism,
the greatest compliment that can ever be paid,
has duly taken place. Nearly every large firm
in consulting now trots out relationship consulting
as one of their special attributes. (“Results”
also a word which only Business Unlimited seemed
to use in the '80s is now in every consultant’s
brochure). Business Unlimited is very careful,
however, to treat a lasting relationship not as
a "take it to leave it" condition which
clients are asked to accept prior to engagement,
but as something which Business Unlimited aspires
to (and hopes the clients will come to see the
merits of it as a result of experiencing Business
Unlimited’s consultants in action and looking
at the results) As a matching step, Business Unlimited
also commits itself not to work for a client's
direct competitors. This was once quoted to mean
not working for anyone else in the same industry
under any circumstances. The current minimum criterion
however is not to undertake work with one client
that could be damaging to another client’s
assignment. An example of such work would be a
project for one client that adversely affected
the market share of another Business Unlimited
client .
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14
– Contingency Fees
Contingency fees (payment by results) are a prominent
feature in Business Unlimited’s billing
arrangements - to a greater extent than is the
case for any other major consultancy. The extent
to which it is offered reflects a high degree
of confidence by Business Unlimited that the client
will be pleased by the results.
Arrangements
agreed with clients are typically:
-
Either a part-payment agreement, under which
a portion of the fees, typically 20-25%, would
be at risk if for some reason the client were
not completely satisfied with the project; in
such an event, which is considered very unlikely.
Business Unlimited would commit itself anyway
to work on a no-fee basis until the client was
in fact, fully satisfied. Client have the option
entirely at their discretion of paying a 20-25%
bonus if they are “super-satisfied”.
- Or
a performance improvement agreement under which
the client pay, say, one half of the fee (if
the improvement achieved fell below the target
agreed) or the full amount (if the target was
met) or an amount above the full fee if the
target has been significantly exceeded.
- There
is also an equity share scheme, under which
Business Unlimited might accept a part of the
client's stock in lieu of fees. This is not
typical, but was introduced at one stage to
help meet the needs of cash-trapped hi-tech
clients engaged in start-up operations.
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15
– Ethos
The ethos, or style, of Business Unlimited’s
consulting is the least tangible of Business Unlimited’s
assets, but is arguably the most important. The
style is one of high- energy entrepreneur-ship,
based on team work between Business Unlimited’s
consultants and also between Business Unlimited
and the client’s staff.
There
is a refreshing urgency and directness in their
work. Business Unlimited’s consultants are
described;
- Over-delivering
on results,
- A
Personal relationship with the client,
- Extra
delivery beyond the contracted brief,
- Reliability,
- Availability.
Business Unlimited therefore targets with particular
care the people it recruits. The principal source
is MBAs from top business schools, high flying
graduates from top universities, and senior executives
who are typically either head-hunted from industry
or from the top ranks of the consultancy profession.
Whatever the source, the ones that Business Unlimited
selects have to have self motivation and entrepreneurrialism
in their make-up.
Business Unlimited appointed; Salim Hajje,
a distinguished senior consultant partner, as
a Regional Director for the Middle East area.
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Today,the
most successful companies
are those who in a fast-changing environment,
identify unique pathways to sustainable results.
16
– We measure our performance by your Results
Business
Unlimited helps companies achieve outstanding
results. Decades ago, this was a new idea in consultancy:
results not just reports. Today, it still sets
us apart from our competitors.
Working with us leads to maximum returns not incremental
improvements. It means focusing on your critical
issues and challenges, not tinkering at the periphery.
Your
investment in Business Unlimited yields clear
and imaginative thinking ; revealing analysis
and organizational alignment. It delivers a full
view of your market place, realistic options and
a practical plan of action.
Many
of our clients are industry leaders. They enjoy
and plan for change, creating enduring blueprints
for the future. They use us as a trusted guide,
to help them discover the pathways to sustainable
results. Their success has fuelled our own and
drives our business, every day.
An
integrated network of Business Unlimited professionals
across five continents enables us to work in concert
with clients to design and implement tailor made
strategies that greatly improve performance, increase
market value and enhance organizational capability;
locally, regionally and globally.
Our
people are passionate, accomplished and entrepreneurial.
They care about your success as much as you do
and team with your people in a confidential process
that you control. They know they have not done
their job until you achieve the success you want.
In fact, we measure our performance by your results.
Business
Unlimited is a unique consultancy. When you involve
us, things will happen: breakthrough ideas, dramatic
change and tangible results.
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17
- profiting from turbulences shifting market forces
create new opportunities to lead
Intensifying
market turbulence creates opportunities. Industry
leaders use it to shift traditional boundaries
and establish new bases of competition. They redefine
their market place instead of being shaped by
it.
Rapid
and fundamental shifts in customer demands and
competitive activity, in technology, in regulation,
all create instability. This is your chance to
produce high returns and lead the market. The
challenge is to apply creative
thinking, new ideas to help your
organization surge ahead. You will need an objective
view plus an enthusiasm to adapt and reinvent
your business.
Market
leaders have a clear view of the future. They
harness the currents of change swirling among
them. They anticipate what their customer will
want and what their competitor will offer. By
owning the future, they discover pathways to powerful
competitive advantage.
creative
thinking
Business Unlimited applies
creative thinking to devise winning strategies
for clients.
We do not offer general industry concepts’
which leads at best, to average performance. Our
recommendations are designed for your business
exclusively. They will be supported by convincing
analysis and practical plans of execution .
In a shifting marketplace, Business Unlimited
helps the world leading companies to profit from
turbulence.
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18
– creating momentum
A sense of urgency is a powerful antidote to inertia
To stay where you are is to die where you are.
Even to keep up with the pace of change, your
organization must evolve. To lead the way, it
must alter the way it thinks about itself and
its markets. The world’s most successful
companies learn how to mobilize, to overcome inertia
, to move faster than the competition. They continually
recreate and reposition themselves.
To
destroy complacency, it is vital to create a sense
of urgency. One approach is to create a compelling
vision of what the future may hold. An understanding
to the critical factors likely to affect your
performance is essential. But to achieve agreement
and to effect change,
you must share this vision and this information
at every level.
The
most successful organizations of the future know
today how their customers and competitors evaluate
them and use this information as a catalyst for
change. They quantify the profitability of future
success and the potential cost of failure. Then
they develop a practical strategy to achieve momentum
and link action to that strategy, revealing the
pathway to enduring results.
effect
change
Business Unlimited’s
success in advising companies worldwide is due
to the results we obtain. We know how to dig beyond
surface symptoms to underlying issues, and how
to gain consensus to deal with them. “Perfect”
solutions that cannot be implemented are worthless.
We work with you to produce unique, achievable
strategies. We make the process of change possible
and practical. We know that otherwise the solution
will not work, however ingenious it may be.
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19
- achieving full potential Winning organizations
Pursue
maximum performance
The most successful companies define their full
potential, learn how to reach it, and settle for
nothing less. They constantly assess and develop
their core business, improving their operations
to deliver more value to their customers. The
results the highest possible return.
Every
company has a sea of agendas competing daily for
attention; ‘satisfactory under-performance’
can become a comfortable resting point. But there
are ways to chart, measure and develop your full
potential. The challenge is to define your most
critical areas for action, separating them from
the rest. Market data, clear insight and Customized
Strategies reveal pathways to
powerful improvements in your core business.
Great companies rank orders their opportunities
and set themselves clear and attainable targets.
They define how key activities should change,
by using relevant internal and external benchmarks.
This reveals their path to maximum performance.
The results from core improvements can be invested
in new products / services and profitable growth.
Customized
Strategies
Business Unlimited understand that each organization
is unique. There is no all-purpose business solution.
That is why we device a business solution for
every client.
Our
recommendations are practical and can be carried
through to success. The external facts we provide
help you to overcome disagreements about what
the situation really is and focus on what it should
be.
Business Unlimited powerful objectivity helps
you to see and reach your full potential.
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20
– Reaching
new
markets
Sustainable growth
stems from systematic exploration
Financial
markets reward growth. Shareholder value hinges
on it. Great companies find pathways to achieve
it; in new product categories, customer segments
and geographic regions; in both existing and emerging
markets.
Opportunities to expand exist all around you,
often close to your core business - if you know
where to look. But realizing them demand systematic
identification and evaluation. Your understanding
of new markets must become as deep as that of
the markets where you operate today. You need
a broad, objective prospective of your capabilities
and the unique values you alone can add to a new
marketplace. The groundwork for a sustained growth
strategy is rigorous fact-based
analysis.
Successful
companies focus on clearly defining their options
and quantifying the financial impact. They understand
customers and anticipate competitors. They choose
the right pathways and develop a realistic and
achievable strategy to achieve maximum results.
Fact-based
analysis.
Business Unlimited’s unique data-driven
approach draws on a great deal off external information.
It explores deeply both within and outside your
industry to discover new viewpoints which will
lead to the creation of powerful and competitive
strategies.
The strategy we develop is for you and you alone,
created around your needs, strengths and goals.
This leads to approaches your organization can
repeat and to more effective, sustainable results.
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21
- Perpetuating SUCCESS
Aligning
organizational and business strategy opens a path
to enduring success
Long-lasting
organizations are self-sustaining. They are based
on a powerful alignment of core values and a clearly
defined growth strategy. They are dynamic in the
way they learn, expand and adapt. The greatest
long-term success stories are those organizations
that continue to evolve at least as rapidly as
their markets.
Rigid
management structures and hierarchical decision-making
processes are ineffective in today's marketplace.
But altering them in an unplanned way easily leads
to confusion. Creating a new and effective decision-making
structure needs careful planning to eliminate
ambiguity. You must find a system that capitalizes
on the skills of your people and still conforms
to your strategic objectives.
Perpetually successful companies are built on
an enduring foundation of core values that define
and guide everything they do. They radiate a clear
vision through every level of their organization.
Their people share a common goal and a clearly
understood strategy. These organizations train
their people respond quickly and empower them
to act responsibly. They measure individual performances
and reward it appropriately. The result is a pathway
to enduring success and superior results.
conforms
to your strategic objectives.
Like
the long-lasting organizations we advice, Business
Unlimited works as a dynamic company worldwide.
We care not only about your total business, but
about your people.
Our strategies are designed to be understood and
accepted by people at all levels in the client
company. We transfer to you strategic skills and
tools, objective thinking and new perspectives,
together with learning that can be repeated. Business
Unlimited helps companies keep success happening,
well into the future.
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