The 10 Best Firms for McKinsey Consulting-Quality Slides

If your slides don’t look like they came out of a McKinsey engagement, you’re leaving credibility on the table.

Anyone who has worked at or alongside a top-tier strategy firm knows that presentation quality is not a nice-to-have—it is a signal. The way a slide is structured, the precision of its data visualization, the economy of its action titles—these details communicate rigor before a single word is spoken aloud. A deck that looks like it was built by a Big 4 associate in a hotel room at 2 a.m. tells a very different story than one that passed through McKinsey’s Visual Graphics team.

The challenge is that most organizations don’t have access to that caliber of design talent. Internal creative teams, however skilled, rarely understand the grammar of a consulting slide—the interplay of the Pyramid Principle, MECE structuring, and the specific visual hierarchy that makes a 40-page strategy deck scannable by a C-suite audience in under ten minutes.

A cottage industry has emerged to fill this gap. Some providers are exceptional. Many are mediocre. And a few are actively misleading about what “consulting-quality” actually means.

After evaluating dozens of services—from boutique agencies staffed by former MBB designers to AI-powered platforms that promise to automate the whole process—here are the ten resources worth your attention, ranked by their ability to produce slides that would pass muster in a McKinsey partner review.

1. Flevy PowerPoint Services

Best for: True consulting-grade slide production from designers who built the standard

Most people know Flevy as the leading marketplace for consulting frameworks, strategy templates, and management best practices—a library of over 10,000 documents built by former McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants that has served more than 10,000 organizations across 130 countries since 2012. It is, in essence, a public-facing version of the internal knowledge management systems that firms like McKinsey maintain for their own consultants.

What fewer people realize is that Flevy also operates a dedicated slide production service—and this is where it earns the top spot on this list. Every designer on the Flevy PowerPoint Services team is hired from McKinsey’s Visual Graphics India (VGI) operation, the internal group that provided presentation design support to McKinsey’s global consulting arm. These aren’t designers who studied consulting slides from the outside. They are the people who made the slides that became the industry benchmark.

The service handles the full spectrum of production work: converting handwritten or scanned notes into polished slides, reformatting decks across master templates, upgrading the visual quality of existing presentations, and converting files from PDF, Word, or other formats into PowerPoint. Project-based work is priced at a flat $35 per hour (with a rate of approximately 2–3 slides per hour for net-new creation and 5–6 for reformatting), and ongoing FTE-level support is available at $28 per hour. Quality assurance is performed in the United States.

What sets Flevy apart is the combination of institutional knowledge and design execution under one roof. The frameworks, the storyboarding methodology, the visual language—the same team that understands how a strategy deck should think is the team that makes it look right. That alignment is rare and, for any organization that needs to produce client-facing or board-ready materials at a consulting standard, extremely valuable.

2. PPT Depot

Best for: Ongoing consulting-template access at the most competitive price point in the market

PPT Depot operates on a fundamentally different model than most entries on this list. Rather than project-based design services, it offers a subscription to a continuously growing library of consulting-quality PowerPoint templates—management topic–focused collections spanning market analysis, strategic planning, digital transformation, and dozens of other areas, alongside industry-specific slide sets. New templates are released weekly.

The economics are compelling. For firms that regularly produce strategy decks, investment memos, or client-ready deliverables, the subscription model eliminates the per-project cost structure that makes other services expensive at scale. It is, by a significant margin, the most cost-effective way to maintain a library of consulting-grade slide assets.

What makes PPT Depot credible is the pedigree behind it. Like Flevy’s services team, PPT Depot’s designers are all former McKinsey Visual Graphics (VGI) specialists. The templates are crafted from real-world deliverables by ex-MBB consultants—not approximations of what consulting slides look like, but actual artifacts of the process. With 15 years of experience, the team has supported over 500 clients in 30+ countries and currently produces 200,000 slides annually.

PPT Depot also offers custom slide production services for subscribers who need bespoke work beyond the template library, with the same ex-McKinsey VGI team handling execution. Executive Plan subscribers receive two hours of complimentary production work per month. For consultancies, corporate strategy teams, and private equity firms that need to maintain a high baseline of presentation quality without the overhead of a dedicated design function, PPT Depot is a standout option.

3. 24Slides

Best for: High-volume, fast-turnaround presentation design for corporate teams

24Slides is the largest-scale presentation design service on this list, and it earns its spot through sheer operational efficiency rather than consulting pedigree. With over 250 in-house designers operating across time zones—headquarters in Denmark, with operations in Peru and Indonesia—the company can deliver redesigned decks in as little as 24 hours, a turnaround that no consulting-focused boutique can match.

The client roster is impressive: McDonald’s, Amazon Web Services, Adidas, IBM, and Oracle, among others. Pricing starts at approximately $11 per slide for one-off work, with subscription plans beginning at $299 per month for teams that need ongoing support. The company has also invested in proprietary AI tools that help maintain brand consistency across high-volume projects.

The honest assessment: 24Slides produces clean, professional, brand-compliant presentations. What it does not produce—and does not claim to produce—is the structured, data-dense, analytically rigorous slide format that characterizes true consulting output. Their designers are trained in graphic design and corporate communication, not in the Pyramid Principle. If you need 200 slides for a company-wide town hall reformatted to a new brand template by Thursday, 24Slides is hard to beat. If you need a 30-page strategy deck that reads like it was built by an engagement team, this is not the right tool.

That distinction matters. Many organizations need both types of work, and 24Slides fills the high-volume, general-purpose lane exceptionally well.

4. Presentation Depot

Best for: On-demand, overnight slide production for management consultants and investment banking professionals

Presentation Depot is a specialist PowerPoint production firm built explicitly for two audiences that live and die by slide quality: management consultants and finance professionals. Founded by Rajesh Nair, a former Presentation Specialist at McKinsey & Company, the firm has been serving global enterprises in consulting and financial services since 2010, with over 6,000 presentations produced to date.

The service model is designed around the realities of professional services work—where a steering committee deck needs to be production-ready by 8 a.m. and the partner just finished marking up handwritten edits at midnight. Presentation Depot operates during India business hours (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. IST), which translates to overnight coverage for U.S. and European clients. Send your scanned notes, whiteboard sketches, screenshots, or rough drafts during your business day; receive polished, formatted slides by the next morning.

The firm offers the full range of consulting-adjacent production services: PowerPoint master template design, slide production from hand-drawn layouts or other digital sources, formatting and template conversion, visual enhancement of existing decks, and custom report generation. All work is performed in-house in a secure compute environment—not farmed out to freelancers—and the company signs NDAs as standard practice, a non-negotiable for the investment banking and consulting clients that form its core base.

What distinguishes Presentation Depot from generalist design agencies is the narrow focus. This is not a firm that also does marketing brochures, social media graphics, and brand identity work. It is a firm that produces consulting-style and investment banking–style slides, period. The McKinsey pedigree of the founding team, the process-oriented approach to slide production, and the advisory involvement of Christy Johnson—a former McKinsey consultant and Stanford MBA—reinforce a culture that understands what “consulting-quality” actually means at the production level. For boutique consultancies, mid-market investment banks, and corporate strategy teams that need reliable, overnight slide production without the overhead of an in-house graphics function, Presentation Depot is a strong fit.

5. BrightCarbon

Best for: Visual storytelling and making complex, data-heavy content accessible

BrightCarbon is a UK-headquartered presentation design agency (with a U.S. presence) that has built a strong reputation for a specific capability: translating dense, technical, or data-heavy content into visually clear and narratively compelling slides. Founded in 2011, the agency works across PowerPoint and Google Slides and has served clients including Siemens, Johnson & Johnson, and Jacobs.

What distinguishes BrightCarbon from many competitors is its emphasis on communication strategy over pure aesthetics. Their process typically begins with content consultation—working with the client to restructure the narrative before a single slide is designed. This makes them a particularly good fit for industries like pharma, technology, and financial services, where the challenge is less about making slides pretty and more about making complex information understandable.

Pricing is project-based and tiered by scope—from smaller “slide revamp” engagements to full-scale presentation creation with strategic messaging workshops. Hourly rates run in the $150–$199 range, with complete projects starting at $10,000 or more. BrightCarbon also offers PowerPoint training and has developed BrightSlide, a free productivity add-in for PowerPoint.

The trade-off: BrightCarbon’s design language is rooted in corporate communication and visual storytelling, not in the specific structural grammar of consulting deliverables. Their slides are polished and effective for conference keynotes, sales presentations, and training materials. For a slide that needs to follow the action-title-plus-data-callout format of a McKinsey steering committee deck, the fit is less precise.

6. Buffalo 7

Best for: Premium, design-forward presentations for brands that want to make a visual statement

Buffalo 7 is one of the UK’s most recognized presentation design agencies, based in Manchester with an additional London presence. With over a decade of experience, the firm has earned a reputation for pushing PowerPoint to its creative limits—custom animations, interactive elements, bespoke artwork, and storytelling-driven design that often looks more like a brand campaign than a slide deck.

Their process is heavily front-loaded around what they call “discovery workshops,” where the team unpacks the brand story, key messaging, and audience challenges before any design work begins. The result tends to be immersive, narrative-rich presentations that function as experiences rather than documents. Buffalo 7 works across PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, and Prezi, and also offers print design, infographics, and presentation skills training.

The strength is clear: if you need a keynote presentation for a major conference, a pitch deck that needs to stop a room, or marketing materials that need to carry a brand’s visual identity with precision, Buffalo 7 does exceptional work. They sit at the premium end of the pricing spectrum, and their output justifies it for the right use case.

The limitation is equally clear: Buffalo 7 is a creative design agency, not a consulting production house. Their slides are built to impress visually and drive emotional engagement—a different objective than the analytical clarity and structured argumentation of a consulting deliverable. For board presentations or strategy reviews that need to communicate in the language of management consulting, the creative emphasis can be a mismatch.

7. Ethos3

Best for: Full-service presentation support from content development through delivery coaching

Nashville-based Ethos3 positions itself as a full-service presentation agency built around what it calls the “three E’s”: engage, energize, and empathize. Where many agencies on this list focus primarily on slide design, Ethos3 covers the full lifecycle—content development, presentation design, and delivery training.

This breadth is genuinely useful for organizations that struggle not just with how their slides look but with how their people present. Ethos3 offers presentation skills coaching alongside design services, making it a strong choice for companies preparing executives for high-stakes speaking engagements, sales kickoffs, or investor events. Their designers work across PowerPoint, Keynote, and other platforms.

The design output is professional and polished, with a visual identity that skews toward clean, modern corporate communication. Turnaround times tend to run 2–3 weeks for standard projects, which positions them as a thoughtful, strategy-oriented partner rather than a rapid-response production shop.

The consulting-quality caveat applies here as it does with most generalist agencies: Ethos3 produces excellent corporate presentations, but its design vocabulary is optimized for audience engagement in live settings, not for the document-style, data-structured formats that characterize consulting deliverables. If your primary need is a compelling keynote or sales presentation, Ethos3 delivers. If you need a 40-page due diligence deck that reads like it came out of a McKinsey engagement, look higher on this list.

8. Slidebean

Best for: Startup pitch decks and fundraising presentations

Slidebean occupies a different corner of the presentation market—one oriented toward startups, founders, and fundraising. The platform combines an AI-powered slide builder with human design services, and its team has helped companies raise a combined $500 million–plus through investor pitch decks.

For the specific use case of preparing a Series A or B deck, Slidebean has real expertise. Their understanding of what venture investors look for, how to frame a financial narrative, and how to structure a pitch flow is meaningfully better than what you will get from a generalist design agency. Pricing for a full pitch deck redesign ranges from roughly $1,500 to $10,000 depending on scope, with the team handling content writing, slide design, and financial model visualization.

The visual language—clean, modern, occasionally playful—is calibrated for a Sand Hill Road audience, not a McKinsey steering committee. The structural rigor of action titles, bumper statements, and MECE decomposition is not part of the Slidebean DNA. If your primary need is investor communications, it is a strong choice. If you need slides that read like a strategy engagement deliverable, the fit is less precise.

9. Gamma

Best for: Rapid first drafts and internal presentations where speed matters more than precision

Gamma represents the most compelling entry in the AI-generated presentation category. Founded by former Optimizely colleagues and backed by a $68 million Series B from Andreessen Horowitz at a $2.1 billion valuation, Gamma has grown to over 70 million users generating more than one million pieces of content daily. It is, by any measure, the dominant player in AI-first slide creation.

The core proposition is speed. Enter a prompt or upload a document, and Gamma produces a complete, designed presentation in roughly 30–60 seconds. The September 2025 launch of Gamma 3.0 introduced “Gamma Agent,” an AI design partner that can research topics, refine content, restyle entire decks, and iterate through natural language conversation. Pricing starts at $8 per month for the Plus plan, with Pro at $15 and team plans scaling from there.

For internal team updates, brainstorming sessions, quick client check-ins, or any context where a decent-looking first draft is more valuable than a polished final product, Gamma is legitimately useful. It eliminates blank-page paralysis and produces visually consistent output that is a clear step up from default PowerPoint templates.

The limitations, however, are fundamental for anyone who needs consulting-quality output. Gamma’s design system is template-driven and produces a recognizable “Gamma look” that becomes repetitive across decks. Precise formatting control—exact font sizes, pixel-level layout adjustments, the kind of typographic discipline that consulting slides require—is limited. PowerPoint exports frequently suffer from formatting degradation, broken layouts, and font issues. And the AI has no concept of consulting slide architecture: action titles, structured data callouts, MECE organization, or the Pyramid Principle.

Gamma is best understood as a first-draft accelerator, not a production tool. Use it to get ideas out of your head and into a visual format quickly. Then hand the output to a human designer—preferably one from higher on this list—for the work that actually matters.

10. Canva

Best for: Quick internal presentations when the quality bar is lower and speed is paramount

Canva is included here not because it belongs in the same category as the services above, but because it is the tool that many professionals default to—and it is important to be clear-eyed about what it can and cannot do.

Canva is an extraordinary product for what it is: a democratized design platform that lets anyone produce visually attractive content quickly. Its template library is vast, its drag-and-drop interface is intuitive, and its collaboration features are well-executed. For internal team presentations, marketing collateral, or social media assets, it is an efficient and cost-effective choice.

For consulting-quality slides, it falls short in ways that matter. Canva’s templates are optimized for visual appeal, not analytical structure. The platform does not natively support the slide architecture that consulting firms rely on—action titles that function as a standalone narrative, structured data callouts, the precise formatting of waterfall charts and bridge analyses. The output tends to look like what it is: a design tool being repurposed for a communication format it was not built to serve.

More practically, Canva’s presentations do not export cleanly to PowerPoint with full editability—a non-negotiable requirement in any professional context where the deck needs to travel across organizations and undergo iterative revision. Consultants, strategy teams, and investment professionals live in PowerPoint. Until that changes, Canva remains a complement, not a substitute.

The Bottom Line

The market for presentation design services is large and growing—projected to surpass $8 billion in 2025—but the subset of providers who genuinely understand the consulting slide format is remarkably small. The difference between a slide that looks professional and one that communicates like a consulting deliverable is the difference between a designer who studied graphic design and one who spent years inside McKinsey’s Visual Graphics operation learning how strategy gets translated into 16:9.

The agencies in the middle of this list—24Slides, Presentation Depot, BrightCarbon, Buffalo 7, Ethos3—are good at what they do. They produce clean, brand-compliant, visually engaging slides for corporate communication, sales enablement, and conference presentations. For those use cases, any of them is a credible choice. But none of them were built to produce the specific artifact that a consulting engagement demands: the structured, data-dense, analytically rigorous slide that tells a complete story through its action titles alone.

For organizations where presentation quality directly impacts client perception, deal outcomes, or board confidence, the investment in true consulting-grade production is not discretionary. It is infrastructure.

Choose accordingly.

Strategy for Global Innovation

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Editor’s Note: If you are interested in becoming an expert on Innovation Management, take a look at Flevy’s Innovation Management Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

* * * *

Humans inherently connect to each other in an indigenous context, generate knowledge, and develop a product to be disseminated by way of commerce. Traditionally, Global Innovation practice has seen assembling of people with vital capabilities and essential knowledge via co-location.

Co-location is the gathering of Innovation specialists into a handful of Innovation centers, domestically and in prime markets. The innovative products and/or services created by them are then dispersed to markets throughout the globe.

However, as the array of knowledge required for Global Innovation becomes extensive and diverse, co-location has become inadequate. Today’s dynamic and shrinking world necessitates taking an expanded approach to Innovation Management.

Most of the organizations have not been able to sufficiently internationalize their Innovation Strategies to make use of the multifaceted knowledge scattered world-wide; knowledge necessary for present-day products and services.

Cause of failure is the generally accepted but perceived trade-offs listed below. The challenge is to surmount these trade-offs, which research has shown is possible.

Approval vs. Disapproval
Autonomy vs. Control
Capability vs. Motivation
Attraction vs. Interest
Achievement vs. Potential

Most companies leverage their international networks just to engage in mundane tasks, and are unable to make use of opportunities for Global Innovation to gain Competitive Advantage.

Let us go into some detail of these tradeoffs.

Approval vs. Disapproval

When pitched generally, the idea of taking Innovation to the global level is agreed to by everyone across the organization. When the task is directed towards a specific entity or specifics of it are assigned, Disapproval ensues.

Autonomy vs. Control

This is the trade-off between granting local autonomy vs. losing centralized control over the Innovation process. Reason for such interpretation is the inability to consider knowledge and power separately.

Capability vs. Motivation

A singularity exists where companies with elevated Innovation Capability exhaust their enthusiasm for Global Innovation.

Attraction vs. Interest

Taking Innovation to the global scale often necessitates partnerships. Such partnerships typically present the predicament that the more desirable the probable partner appears, the less those feelings are reciprocated.

Achievement vs. Potential

There is a trade-off between the over-emphasis on historical achievements vs. the potential for future achievements, as over-reliance on what has worked in the past will hinder Creativity required for a new environment.

Effective Global Innovation of products and services has the hallmark of unrestricted reciprocity of unstated knowledge between people scattered around the world. Such an evolution can be achieved by optimizing 3 diverse aspects of Innovation, generally simultaneously.

The 3-prong approach to Global Innovation Strategy that overcomes the Global Innovation trade-off of Knowledge Complexity vs. Global Dispersion comprises of:

Compact & Agile Innovation Footprint
Capabilities & Structures for Communication
Internal & External Collaboration

Universal principles of Global Innovation Strategy keep evolving for making each of these attributes work, based on the experience of numerous entities.

Let us delve a little deeper into the 3 principles.

Compact & Agile Innovation Footprint

This relates to the quantity of tangible sites in an Innovation network. Only that number of physical sites should be included in an Innovation network which are able to add exclusive and discerned knowledge.

Capabilities & Structures for Communication

This aspect has to do with overcoming the challenge of distance, time, and culture when taking Innovation to the global level.

Communication is a momentous challenge when there is distance, time, and culture difference. Developing a culture of open knowledge-sharing is vital for taking Innovation to a global scale.

Internal & External Collaboration

This aspect looks at collaboration protocols for co-located sites versus globally dispersed collaboration.

Interested in learning more about Global Innovation Strategy? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Global Innovation Strategy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Want to Achieve Excellence in Innovation Management?

Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Innovation Management. Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.

To be competitive and sustain growth, we need to constantly develop new products, services, processes, technologies, and business models. In other words, we need to constantly innovate.

Ironically, the more we grow, the harder it becomes to innovate. Large organizations tend to be far better executors than they are innovators. To effectively manage the Innovation process, we need to master both the art and science of Innovation. Only then can we leverage Innovation as a Competitive Advantage, instead of viewing Innovation as a potential disruptive threat.

Learn about our Innovation Management Best Practice Frameworks here.

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3 Strategic Thinking Games for Decision Makers

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Organizational leadership can draw on 3 Strategic Thinking Games to master Business Strategy and apply in varied scenarios and organizational structures. The Strategic Thinking Games provide Decision Making models for senior executives to choose from and use as per the situation.

The Strategic Thinking Games are based on mathematics and statistics, particularly Probability Theory, and exhaustive research into the Business Strategy realm. Probability Theory is actually a branch of mathematics that deals with analysis of random phenomena. The basic element of Probability Theory is an experiment that can be at least hypothetically repeated under identical conditions, but may lead to different outcomes on different trials.

Each of the Strategic Thinking Games warrants employing a different mindset and decision-making approach to confront the challenges presented by a particular problem. Executives can apply these Strategic Thinking Models to control their future:

Planning as Positioning
Organization Learning
Constructive Transformation

Let’s discuss these Strategic Thinking Models in detail.

Planning as Positioning

The 1^st Strategy game allows the players to make 40 blind draws from a pot holding 25 black and 75 red balls. It costs $10 per draw—which has to be paid beforehand—and it allows the players the opportunity to win $20 on drawing a red ball but naught on drawing a black ball. The game imitates a scenario where managers make informed bets about the future based on data and insights into the level of uncertainty encountered.

The Planning as Positioning Model enables the executives to learn about their industry and competition, gauge ambiguities and uncertainties, and select markets that have the potential to generate a positive Return on Investment (ROI).

A classic example of a company operating on the Planning & Positioning Model was the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT). For 17 years, the company was led by Harold Geneen (from 1960 to 1977). Harold Geneen was unrestricted by any company mission. He expanded in multiple industries, acquired around 350 enterprises from varied industries, including auto parts, cosmetics, hospitality, insurance, and technology. As a formal accountant, Harold considered facts as indisputable, final, and a foundation for making strategic decisions. He would travel to far-flung regions to meet his business unit managers, who were free to make their own strategic decisions but were responsible for their unit’s performance and objectives’ achievement.

Organization Learning

The 2^nd Strategy game allows the players to blind draw from a pot containing an unknown mix of red and black balls. This time it costs $5 per draw. Players have to bet on either color before each draw. They can draw up to 50 times, or stop whenever they want, and win $20 if they draw the right ball. This game imitates a scenario for training managers to dynamically respond to upcoming events with unpredictable degree of uncertainty.

Through the pot filled with balls experiment, it was revealed that when people are given complicated choices, they behave in manners conflicting with their beliefs. In his famous Ellsberg Paradox, Ellsberg hypothesized that people make illogical preferences in order to avoid ambiguity. The Organizational Learning Model underlines that in a world full of uncertainties instead of spending too much time predicting the future, planning and positioning, organizations should devise and implement an evolving strategy, take one step at a time, search for viable patterns, and then adjust the course based on results.

An example of successful implementation of the 2^nd Strategic Thinking Model is Corning Inc. that embraced Organizational Learning to develop a healthy product pipeline. The company developed Pyrex, TV tubes…..

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Capabilities-driven IT Strategy for the Digital Age

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Customary practice to Capital Budgeting for satisfying needs of Information Technology development and support pursues a fragmented process and considers requests as stand-alone projects, each with its particular business justification.

The approach bases most of the capital allocation on historical expenditure patterns and financial projections. It handicaps the underlying Enterprise Architecture making it inflexible and layered with unnecessary complexity. The practice results in inferior outcomes with far greater expenditure. It also increases the fixed costs of IT operations because of reluctance to retire legacy systems.

Conventional approach to Capital Budgeting for IT projects is too outdated and sluggish for today’s Digital Age, where technology has taken a more strategic role.

In the Digital Age, technology needs to be rapidly developed to support not only the operations of the organization, but also to directly support Corporate Strategy. Thus, we need a faster, more agile approach to IT Strategy.

Capabilities-driven IT Strategy uses an approach where a comprehensive view to IT is adopted based on unique proficiencies of the company. It shapes an organization-wide justification for Information Technology. It also puts IT function and business unit together for developing the IT Strategy. Capabilities-driven approach highlights the strategic worth of visionary IT leadership, particularly in assisting companies comprehend which strategies are most feasible.

The approach presses the company to base judgment on the manner in which the company creates value, on the investment required for distinguishing capabilities, and on the contribution that IT ought to make. Capabilities-driven approach centers investment on limited distinctive capabilities that set the company apart.

Quite a few companies have employed such strategies, over a short period of time, and have attained a new kind of IT and operational leadership.

Capabilities-driven IT Strategy is achieved through a 4-phase approach:

Determine our Distinctive Capabilities in Relation to IT.
Prioritize our IT Project Portfolio.
Develop Technology Roadmap of IT Investments and Activities.
Develop Culture and Governance to Support IT Strategy.

The phases are sequential, where in each phase, a fundamental question regarding the role of IT in the organization is answered.

Let us probe some aspects of the phases a little more deeply.

Determine our Distinctive Capabilities in Relation to IT

The question answered in this phase is regarding Distinctive Capabilities of the company—capabilities that sustain the company’s strategic priorities and gives it a Competitive Advantage—and how Information Technology can play a part in improving them.

Prioritize our IT Project Portfolio

The question answered in this phase is how should the IT projects that will enhance the distinctive capabilities identified in phase 1 be prioritized?

To do this, an IT investment portfolio matrix—based on Strategic Importance and Value Potential criteria—is used that places the IT investment in 1 of the following 4 categories:

Invest to Grow
Invest to Sustain
Invest to Refine
Invest to keep the lights on

Develop Technology Roadmap of IT Investments and Activities

The question answered in this phase is regarding the order of investment and activity that will permit the company to achieve the goals set and fill the gaps that need closing.

Develop Culture and Governance to Support IT Strategy

The issue to tackle in this phase pertains to the nature of Cultural and Governance support needed to put this IT strategy into practice.

Interested in learning complete details of Capabilities-driven IT Strategy and its phases? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Capabilities-driven IT Strategy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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3 Practices of Product Launch Strategy

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Mature markets, where the customer base begins to stagnate, call for structured Organic Growth founded on a superior Customer Value Proposition (CVP). CVP encompasses all that is gained by customers for the money they pay—material as well as intangible. Customer Value can be articulated by the equation:


Customer Value = (Product Performance + Service Delivered + Image) / Price Paid

CVP endeavors can be lacking due to many reasons such as use of incorrect Research Method, misapplication of a correct statistical method, incorrect interpretation of research outcomes in the background of current brand position, market situations, or capabilities system of the company.

Crafting an effective CVP requires insight and experience, but the probabilities of realization escalate by applying a structured process. Organizations that defy odds and repeatedly thrive with many new-product unveilings lean towards applying a disciplined approach to developing their CVP. The approach that these organizations follow comprises of 3 distinct practices, blending creative inventiveness and analysis. The 3 Pillars of Product Launch Strategy are:

Market-backed Analysis
Darwinian Competitive Review
Capabilities-Forward Assessment

Each of the 3 practices has the two-fold effect of being an idea generator as well as an idea sifter.

The practices produce fresh thoughts regarding trends for growth and also assist in determining the products and services to launch and the way to position them.

Let us go a little further into details of each pillar.

Market-Backed Analysis

Market Research merely queries consumers regarding their attitudes, inclinations, and aversions. Real focus of such research should be on comprehending behavior; such as the trade-offs consumers make when deliberating a purchase. Market-Backed Analysis is a method of collecting consumer insights that isolates the value imputed by consumers to various components of a product or service, and generates practical information as a consequence.

Darwinian Competitive Review (DCR)

Executives are always on the lookout for new product and service innovations that can distinguish their companies. New ideas are always more exciting than an innovation that the industry has already introduced. Darwinian Competitive Review suggests that even a new idea must follow some demonstrated Value Proposition—i.e., proven success somewhere else. DCR calls for scrutiny of those Customer Value Propositions that have exhibited success across several markets, and of competitors who have already instituted themselves in those markets.

Capabilities-Forward Assessment

Capabilities-Forward Assessment is a thorough evaluation of what the company already does skillfully, and which novel Value Propositions its Capabilities System will be able to sustain. Possessing the correct Distinctive Capabilities that are aligned can be the difference between being common place and being great. An example of the above would be the difference between offering a product at low cost and at the lowest cost.

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3 Principles to Design a Leadership Operating Model

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Most people believe that the value and impact of the C-level leadership originates from the number of meetings conducted, having the ability to plan for long term, and make key strategic decisions collectively. However, in reality, the C-level seldom works in unanimity to make collective decisions. They often have animosities with each other and lack collaboration and mutual trust.

The real impact and success of the top team emanates from the informal and social networks of its members, their resolve to capitalize on those connections for strategic decision making, and their competency to perform well in subgroups created to solve pressing concerns.

Effective C-level leadership is conscious of the value of their informal / social networks and their ability to deal with serious issues. They organize themselves in a way to work as the nucleus of the organization, which gives them the leverage to promptly act on adversities or opportunities.

Leadership’s Social Network Analysis

C-level’s informal social network enables an organization to draw combined capabilities—in-house as well as the extended network. Top leadership needs to evaluate the strengths of their social network by mapping their informal associations. This can be done by conducting surveys, analyzing meetings, phone calls, and emails.

The social network analysis reveals that 90% actionable information comes from this informal leadership network rather than through internal reports and datasets. These linkages aren’t distributed evenly; some members may be highly networked commanding a major chunk of two-way interactions across the organization whereas others may have a smaller network and lesser influence accordingly. The analysis also suggests that poor leadership connections lead to failed decisions—whereas enriched networks cause advancement in Innovation and Organizational Efficiency.

To design—or redesign—an effective Leadership Operating Model, organizations need to incorporate 3 key principles in their operations:

Leverage Focused Subgroups
Improve Networking Effectiveness
Manage Conflicts at the Constituent Level

These 3 principles aren’t simple to implement. It warrants evolving the very nature of how the senior leadership team functions and design a more poised and assimilated Operating Model.

Let’s discuss these principles in detail.

Leverage Focused Subgroups

Senior leadership’s performance cannot be judged solely by its ability to revamp the enterprise’s organogram. Effective top leadership demands from the team a capability to form peer-to-peer, top-down, and bottom-up relationships; and work in discrete yet linked groups, each of which is focused on solving a unique problem or tapping an opportunity.

Depending upon the circumstances, leaders should adopt any of these modes when dealing with networks. Focused subgroups work best in 3 discrete modes:

Discussion Groups – These groups focus on information flow, comparing notes, and updating each other on progress. The mode does not cater strategic decisions or active leadership.
Single Leader Units – In this mode, every executive of the group has clear responsibilities and is accountable to one boss who has the authority over the others to enable speed and efficiency.
Real Teams – This subgroup includes executives possessing similar capabilities, who are committed under an accommodating leader to achieve shared objectives.

Networking Effectiveness

It is culturally acceptable at many organizations to utilize time on trivial matters—e.g. unnecessary e-mailing, lengthy approval cycles, long-drawn-out meetings, or to schedule events. These matters cannot be eliminated altogether however, meticulously planned informal networking between the top team enhances efficiency of leaders to a great extent.

Each member of the C-level should connect the right people together, lead and support subgroups, and maintain associations. Gaps in informal communication between leaders damage the implementation of organizational strategic plans. Interaction between top executives is often limited to participation in senior level meetings for information sharing purposes only, lacking collaboration to pursue shared objectives. To make matters worse, they spend too little a time with their direct reports, employees, or customers. This detachment creates widespread unease and skepticism.

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3 Pillars for Growth

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* * * *

A question faced by many business leaders in today’s dynamic, uncertain, and changing business environment is: Is our organization “Fit for Growth?” In most cases, unfortunately, the answer to this question is “no.” Reasons include the manner in which costs are managed and resources deployed.

The fundamental question needed to be asked is: how to assess whether the organization is Fit for Growth? Such an assessment is effortlessly possible through answering the following 3 questions:

Does the company have well-defined Strategic Priorities that concentrate on strategic growth and which direct its investments?
Do the company costs align with the Strategic Priorities? i.e., efficient and effective employment of resources toward the Priorities.
Does the Organizational Structure enable achievement of those Strategic Priorities?

Imagining the converse side of these queries makes the picture clearer. That is, what are the consequences of: Not having clear Priorities, Inappropriate deployment of Costs, Not having a well-designed organization.

Positioning the company to be Fit for Growth requires basing it on the following 3 pillars of Growth:

Setting the company on the 3 pillars enables it to direct investments towards the Capabilities that are most crucial and reduce—or eradicate—other costs.

Let us delve a little deeper into the details of these 3 pillars.

Strategic Priorities

Numerous warning indicators are apparent if the Strategic Growth Priorities of a company are not crystalized.

Warning signs such as being unable to keep track of the numerous initiatives that the company has going at the same time.

Senior executives of the company attending lots of unrelated meetings in a day. Executives being divergent on the most important capabilities of the company and how they relate to the strategic objectives.

Areas that can distinguish the company from its competitors not being properly invested in.

Research has established an important correlation between Capabilities and Strategy. Capabilities require lots of attention and investment because of their cross-functional effect and limited number.

It is therefore, needed to have clear Priority regarding which Capabilities to invest in.

Cost Structure

Inappropriate Costs Structure is also an indicator of incorrect priorities, particularly the amount spent on non-essentials.

Organizations aiming to be Fit for Growth make themselves lean and expend money purposefully. They can maintain their commanding position in such Cost Transformations by pursuing the 12 principles.

Costs are managed for efficiency as well as effectiveness using tools and practices that are usually grouped into 3 categories.

Growth

Organizations, over time, become slow in reacting to opportunities and do not move quickly enough, or are not in-line enough to work in unison. These are common manifestations, even in organizations that are run and managed well.

Interested in learning more about Fit for Growth? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Fit for Growth here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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“Strategy without Tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu

For effective Strategy Development and Strategic Planning, we must master both Strategy and Tactics. Our frameworks cover all phases of Strategy, from Strategy Design and Formulation to Strategy Deployment and Execution; as well as all levels of Strategy, from Corporate Strategy to Business Strategy to “Tactical” Strategy. Many of these methodologies are authored by global strategy consulting firms and have been successfully implemented at their Fortune 100 client organizations.

These frameworks include Porter’s Five Forces, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, Greiner’s Growth Model, Capabilities-driven Strategy (CDS), Business Model Innovation (BMI), Value Chain Analysis (VCA), Endgame Niche Strategies, Value Patterns, Integrated Strategy Model for Value Creation, Scenario Planning, to name a few.

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– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Reinvention

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Majority of pharmaceutical companies are persisting with decade old processes and routines. They have transactional relationships with suppliers, lack of concerted efforts to progress ahead, and no vision to reap productivity rewards. The reasons for continuing with these traditional practices include tax regimes, regulatory hurdles, and stable revenues from customers dependent on existing industry offerings.

Disruption—spurred by technological Innovation, fluctuating customer demand patterns, and more agile and creative competitors—has forced the pharmaceutical sector to think of ways to face these challenges, survive, and thrive. One of the strategic response to this competitive disruption—by leading manufacturers—is to reexamine their manufacturing operations, embracing agile principles, reducing costs, revolutionizing procurement and distribution functions, and striving to achieve Operational Excellence. Above all, they view their supply chain not as a cost center, but as a source of Competitive Advantage.

The increasing influence of generic drugs is another challenge for large multinational pharmaceuticals. In the past, multinational companies (MNCs) dominated the market owing to possessing a number of high-market drugs protected under patents. Patent protection afforded them the leverage to set high prices on each product. The scenario is fast changing. Expiry of high-market drugs patents is creating a huge opening for generic competitors and the space is widening compared to the past.

In the past, pharma manufacturers were able to counter the threat to generic competitors by developing new drugs. However, this is becoming difficult and the new drugs pipeline is shrinking with time. R&D expenditure has continuously gone up, however, drug approval from the authorities has not kept paced with it. It has rather declined, straining the MNCs further.

Other disruptive factors include newer distribution methods, public health plans favoring generic drugs over proprietary ones due to cost effectiveness, the newer internet / mail delivery options displacing traditional pharmacy dispensing options. Pharmacy chains—e.g. Walgreens—have given a leverage to the retailers to negotiate reduction in medicine prices where again generics have an edge over MNCs.

Moreover, the trend of drugs purchased through a formal tender process is increasingly gaining acceptance, adding to the difficulties of large pharma manufacturers. Additionally, strict regulations are minimizing the cost benefits that MNCs traditionally enjoyed in the past.

All these factors have forced the pharma companies to reorganize their Supply Chains in a more flexible manner to manage complexities, bring in efficiency, and contain costs to compete in off-patent segment with generics.

Reorganization of a conventional pharmaceutical Supply Chain into an Agile, flexible, and inexpensive Supply Chain warrants developing Operational Excellence and Cost Reduction competencies. This necessitates 5 strategic steps (phases):

Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to SCM
Develop Agile product design and packaging capabilities
Restructure the Supply Chain footprint
Establish partnerships with 3^rd party suppliers
Enhance planning capabilities

Let’s discuss these steps in detail.

Step 1 – Avoid a One-size-fits-all Approach to SCM

Large pharma MNCs typically maintain the Supply Chain of all of their drugs with a single strategy of retaining high inventory and service levels. Such a strategy can only work for products having a high profit margin, in a static environment. It is not suitable for low-margin products, contrasting environments, and does not take into account fluctuations in demand patterns. An appropriate approach is to implement a multiple Supply Chains model based on individual products and markets.

Step 2 – Develop Agile Product Design and Packaging Capabilities

The 2^nd step in Pharma Supply Chain Reinvention involves quick distribution of different versions of products to markets based on demand. For low-margin products with high demand volatility, the Supply Chain Management Strategy should be to employ Pack-to-Order system. The Pack-to-Order approach involves developing a version of a product that could be timely dispatched to several markets of varying demand across the globe. This approach coupled with Postponement Strategy—where products are packed to order during later stages of production based on regional demand—assists in trimming down the inventory, reducing complicatedness, and enhancing Supply Chain nimbleness to demand volatility.

Interested in learning more about how to reinvent your Pharmaceutical Supply Chain? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Reinvention here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

3 Types of Capabilities-driven Mergers and Acquisitions

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Editor’s Note: If you are interested in becoming an expert on Post-merger Integration (PMI), take a look at Flevy’s Post-merger Integration (PMI) Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

* * * *

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) generally do not produce the outstanding results that they are envisioned and purported to provide. Some companies in certain industries, however, demonstrate consistent success when it comes to M&A.

A constant question across all industries, as far as M&As are concerned, pertains to the factors that differentiate organizations with successful histories. The magic ingredient in the success of these companies is their Corporate Strategy that utilizes Capabilities as the source for inorganic Growth. Capabilities-driven M&A have managed to raise shareholder value for the acquirer despite the tough years since the economic crisis of the 2000s. The majority of other inorganic Growth attempts produced a loss of value.

Companies employing the Capabilities-driven Strategy were recompensed with deals that had a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) average of 12 percentage points greater in shareholder return compared to M&A deals by other acquirers in that very industry and region.

Particular industries, for instance Information Technology and Retail, demonstrated a bigger effect. However, all industries displayed a steady, noticeable, Capabilities Premium in M&A. Capabilities-driven Strategy is exceptionally beneficial in M&A transactions where, frequently, time window is narrow and the risks elevated.

Capabilities Systems are defined as 3 to 6 reciprocally strengthening, distinguished Capabilities that are structured to hold up and drive Organizational Strategy, integrating people, processes, and technologies to create something of value for customers.

Setting apart likely M&A success factors is accomplished more easily by separating successful deals by their declared Intent consequently, capturing the dominant view regarding purpose of each deal.

Intent can be classified into 5 categories: Capability Access Deals, Product and Category Adjacency Deals, Geographic Adjacency Deals, Consolidation Deals, and Diversification Deals.

There is a lot of talk about Fit during M&A discussions. Fit does not mean introducing an ostensibly linked product or service, plugging a gap in a category, or moving in a new geography—such sorts of acquisitions are frequently unsuccessful.

Fit relates to unity, the benefit that ensues when Capabilities of a company fit mutually into a system, lining up to its market position, and employed to its complete array of products and services.

Deals when cross-categorized by their Capabilities System Fit, fall into following 3 categories:

Enhancement Deals
Leverage Deals
Limited-Fit Deals

Let us delve a little deeper into the 3 categories.

Enhancement Deals

Enhancement deals enable the acquiring company to include new Capabilities so as to close gaps in its present Capabilities System or counter an alteration in its market.

Nearly 2/3^rd of the deals studied—in a 2011 study spanning 8 sectors—used Capabilities to good effect, either by way of Enhancement or Leverage.

Leverage Deals

Leverage deals are where the acquirer makes use of prevailing Capabilities System in their company to handle incoming products and services, customarily augmenting the acquired company’s performance.

Leverage deal are frequently low-risk deals that may not require the acquirer to alter anything concerning its inhouse Capabilities System to make it work.

Limited Fit Deals

Limited-fit deals are deals where the purchasing company generally ignores Capabilities. Normally such deals provide a purchaser with product or service that need new Capabilities.

Interested in learning more about Capabilities-driven M&A? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Capabilities-driven M&A here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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M&A is an extremely common strategy for growth. M&A transactions always look great on paper. This is why the buyer typically pays a 10-35% premium over the of the target company’s market value.

However, when it comes time for the Post-merger Integration (PMI), are we really able to capture the expected value? Studies show only 20% of organizations capture projected revenue synergies and only 40% capture cost synergies. Not to mention, the PMI process is typically very painful, drawn out, and politically charged, often resulting in the loss of key personnel.

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– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

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– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

4-Phase Customer-centric Segmentation

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* * * *

Rising competition and introduction of new ways of capturing large amounts of customer data has necessitated advancement in capabilities of organizations to foresee and fulfill customer needs and wants.

Ever more B2C concerns are going all-out to Design Customer-centric organizations. Organizations pursuing Customer-centricity depend on some type of Market Segmentation. Market Segmentations assist in understanding the customer more intimately.

This understanding has to be based on solid data. Even though the collection of customer data is at its highest of all time, organizations are still finding it difficult to apply the insights being offered by Customer Segmentation to propel Change and enhance Performance. This is the Customer Data Paradox. With more customer data, it has ironically become more difficult to derive useful insights from the data.

Data-driven enterprises are sensing that their Segmentation endeavors have been unable to provide anything near the extent of benefit they should. Cause for such failure is development of Segmentations founded on contradictory Business Purpose; purposes that are not widely comprehended or communicated or cannot be immediately acted upon.

Segmentation is indispensable to the process of dealing with the intricacies of constantly evolving and dividing customer clusters and their diverse demands. Need for developing a company-wide Operating Model that is able to transform this extensive data into valuable information so as to enable improved Go-to-Market decisions is essential.

This intricate Segmentation process can be handled more effectively by following the 4-phase approach to Customer-centric Segmentation:

Delineate Purpose
Plan around Purpose
Functionalize Segmentation
Control Implementation

Segmentation offers clarity and insights regarding customer behavior, tendencies, and proclivities.

Customer Segmentation also amplifies the chances of effectiveness of Marketing and Customer Experience management campaigns, and impelling Brand Positioning and Product Development.

Let us look at the 4 phases in detail.

Delineate Purpose

Clearly defining and understanding the Purpose of Segmentation is necessary to set the base for the type of Segmentation effort that is required to be undertaken—i.e., Strategic or Tactical or both.

Strategic Segmentation is applied for all-embracing, enterprise-wide purposes. Tactical Segmentation is adopted for a far more precise purpose.

Goal is to guarantee that Segmentation results in distinct processes and actions that augment Performance.

Plan around Purpose

Segmentation research needs to be meticulously planned to manifest the Purpose decided, and to make certain that the outcomes are insightful, practicable, and discernable.

Segmentation research has to encompass several dimensions such as behaviors, outlooks, demographics, channel use, inclinations, and profitability.

Functionalize Segmentation

This phase involves determining changes that will take place in the decision processes and communicating them to the concerned business partners so as to deliberate on and devise adjusted metrics that reflect the new capabilities.

Control Implementation

Means for administering change—directed and customized communications arranged to stimulate understanding, interaction, and approval—are required to be utilized completely.

Interested in learning more about Customer-centric Segmentation? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Customer-centric Segmentation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd