Strategy Consulting considerations

Classic business case studies inform us that if a company has the proper strategy and can execute on that strategy, they will be successful. Strategy Consulting firms know this and promote themselves in an effort to engage companies that are interested in their service. Typically, these organizations have expensive rates and they are only accessible to large, multi national organization. Within the industry, there are a handful of consultants that focus on the development of a business strategy with the specific intention of driving the revenues derived from the small to medium business channel. The reason is that there are very few smb business strategy consulting firms is that there are very few individuals who have experience in both large and small corporate environments.

Additionally, strategy consulting can involve tedious work and processes in trying to determine the possible reasons why a company is failing in their efforts to sell to the small to medium business channel. One of the earliest suggestions is to recommend the proper segmentation of marketing to the smb channel. The question often posed to the chief marketing officer and product teams is whether they are marketing to the correct segments within the smb channel. The response from most companies indicates that they view the smb channel as one large channel. Instead, the reality is that the small to medium business channel is a large fragmented channel with only a handful of prospects worth pursuing. Before marketing to the smb channel, it is vital to categorize the smb customers in to four growth categories:
- Negative Growth
- No Growth
- Growth
- Hyper-Growth

Customers and prospects will fall in to one of the above four categories. Strategy consulting organizations will recommend that large companies avoid negative growth and no growth entities. Instead, the true task of the marketing team will be to identify the prospects that are on a growth or hyper-growth trajectory with respect to their revenues. These are the prize and cherished small to medium businesses that everyone aims for. Additionally, it is worth determining whether a particular vertical channel is worth pursuing or if other sub-markets can be identified within the small to medium business channels.

The next recommendation from the strategy consulting team is for the management team to have active and engaging conversations with owners, founders, and entrepreneurs running small to medium businesses. The true intention of these face-to-face meetings is to hear directly from their target audience what they want to purchase, what services or products will address their needs, how much they are willing to spend for those respects services, and how they can potentially differentiate themselves from the competitive landscape. It is this time where magical moments of clarity are provided and insight can be converted to products and services. This is a critical step that many Fortune 1000 and large companies simply skip in an effort to rapidly get their products to market. Unfortunately, this rush to market results in sub par sales to the small to medium business channel.