STRATEGY
Strategy is the top priority of all world class businesses.
Strategy Empowers Business
Business owners and leaders have many competing calls for their attention, from operations to sales, from marketing to finance. Strategy flows through and guides all areas of the firm. As such a good or improved strategy has a disproportionately positive impact across the entire business.
Innovation Creates Disruption
Technology drives ever-accelerating change. Whether this becomes a threat or an opportunity to your business depends less upon your positioning as an incumbent or innovator, and more upon how your strategy evolves to reflect the changes in your business environment.
Strategy is Choice
Strategy is the big choices that set the reference points for your entire business; for example, which markets to compete in, how to create new markets, the degree of vertical integration, what products to offer, how to invest in technology, or how to organise yourself. Strategy is about making choices, not planning.
Strategy as a Distraction
Traditional strategy advice typically fails on generalisation, complexity, and execution. Template solutions are proposed for all companies in an industry regardless of their specific circumstances, jargon hides the frailty of the underlying advice, and the ultimate goal of the advisor may be to sell an implementation project for a solution that is over-complicated.
Oxford Strategy is Different
Oxford Strategy pursues a lean approach to strategy advice. We use management's insights into their firm and industry to guide our work, thus avoiding expensive and unnecessary research projects, and our strategy recommendations are designed to be implemented by company management, avoiding complex implementation projects.
PHILIP GUEST
Founder and Principal of Oxford Strategy
Academic Excellence
Distinction-winning research
Philip gained a Distinction from Saïd Business School at Oxford University for his work on the strategic challenges facing the automotive industry, alongside the Saïd Prize in his (masters-level) Diploma in Strategy and Innovation. He holds an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and is a Chartered Accountant.
Independent Recognition
European Fund Manager of the Year
Philip won the prestigious Extel European Fund Manager of the Year award in 2013, as well as numerous other sector-specific awards in automotive, media, retail, leisure and luxury, recognising his long-term success in investing in fast-changing disruption-facing consumer businesses.
Commercial Success
World-class real-world commercial and strategy experience
Philip's success in investing was founded on his deep commercial understanding of innovation and disruptive change, gained during the 1990s and 2000s when he held senior positions in strategic planning and business development at blue-chip companies in the global technology, media and telecoms industries.
CHRIS DANUSIAR
Co-Founder and Principal of Oxford Strategy
Academic and Teaching Excellence
Adjunct and executive education lecturer
Chris gained his Diploma in Strategy and Innovation from Saïd Business School at Oxford University alongside his research on the strategic impacts of blockchain adoption on the audit industry. He also holds an MBA and BSc in Management Engineering. Chris teaches MBA and Executive Education students, particularly on Transformation Leadership, and is a member of the Practitioner Panels at Saïd Business School.
Leadership in Strategy and Innovation
World-class enterprise strategy experience
Chris pioneers and leads product management and experience design teams. Most recently, as interim CEO of a technology innovation start-up, he built and led the team which completed two innovative alpha product candidates for the disruption of the financial reporting and crypto-currency industries, both in less than five months.
Transformation Success
Successful technology transformation leader
Chris led the delivery of the world’s first global digital audit ecosystem, based on server-less cloud-based technology solution delivery, the single most successful technology programme in the Big 4 firm's history. With a focus on employee engagement, he specialises in the delivery of large-scale innovative technology projects; on time, on budget, and beyond scope. His work led to significant global enterprise audit engagement wins for the firm in the years following its delivery.
HOW OXFORD STRATEGY WORKS
Four common elements combine to create bespoke projects.
Orientation
Understanding You
Your strategy must differentiate you from your competition, so your strategy needs to be unique to you. Understanding your company, the specific challenges and opportunities it faces, is as important to us as understanding your industry.
Innovation
Strength or Opportunity
In a fast-changing world, are you an innovator who needs to industrialise, or an industrialist who needs to innovate? We will bring ideas relevant to your current innovation positioning and industrial ambition.
Comparison
Global Best Practice
We use over 200 leading strategy frameworks which represent the leading edge of current strategy thinking. We will identify those most relevant to your industry and your business.
Application
Plain English
We deliver bespoke advice in plain English, ready for implementation by you. We offer practical solutions not academic theories, choosing the most relevant insights for your business.
EXAMPLES OF STRATEGY FRAMEWORKS
Just some of the 200+ frameworks, models, theories and tools from which we choose the most relevant for your business.
Strategy Lifecycle
Should you be planning to innovate, or industrialise?
Based on our own work at Oxford Saïd, the strategy lifecycle defines companies by their current positioning (incumbent or disruptor) and ambition (innovation or consolidation). Positioning within the strategy lifecycle has a significant influence on the strategy choices that need to be made by individual firms. Let us help you understand your position in the strategy lifecycle, and how that informs the strategic choices you face.
Mass Adoption
Taking your innovation into the mainstream
Many innovations enjoy rates of take-up that are initially very high. But moving demand from early adopters to mainstream customers is a challenging hurdle. Building on the seminal work of strategic thinkers such as Moore and Rogers, we have developed our own unique framework for anticipating and overcoming the barriers to mass adoption. Ask us about our work on adoption patterns in innovative industries such as electric vehicles and card payment services.
Focus or Diversify?
Probably both, but selectively
Customer focus can reap large rewards for some companies, but for others it creates problems of over-diversification. Whether to serve the many needs of a narrow set of customers, or the narrow needs of a wider set of customers, is a critical strategy choice. We can guide you through that choice and help your streamline or grow your business in a way that makes sense for you, your customers and the markets in which you operate.
Business Model
Fitting the pieces together
Every business knows its own business model, but in no business does every element of that business model operate with full effectiveness. We can deconstruct your operations into their nine constituent business model elements, help you identify those with potential for improvement, and re-assemble them with into a coherent whole that more effectively supports your wider strategic goals.
Internationalisation
Local, International or Global?
Some businesses are naturally local, but some are naturally international or even global, especially those based around technological innovation. There are opportunities to exploit economies of scale by aggregating critical functions across geographies, and capture cost arbitrage across borders and currencies. But the regulatory and market environment may well be different, demanding that you adapt your business model away from that of your home market. We can guide you through these challenges, with commercial experience and academic insight.
CLIENT STUDIES
Some of our exciting projects for innovative companies in disrupted industries.
Sustainable Tyres
Prioritisation
Acceleration of research and development to support fundraising initiatives, using a bespoke prioritisation tool developed specifically for the client.
Electrified Mobility
Moving people
Developed a strategy for an existing emobility business to transition from a services business model to a platform business model, driving growth and create barriers to entry.
Automotive
Distribution
Designed a new incentive and relationship structure for maximising up and downstream profitability in the motor vehicle distribution chain.
Payment Systems
Innovation
Created a cohesive roll-out plan and business model for a novel app-based payment system, identifying market opportunities, competitor weaknesses and product focus.
Healthcare
Focus
Helped the directors of a growing and profitable healthcare start-up define the objectives for their next phase of geographic and product expansion.
Sports Rights
Exploitation
Devised new products for the commercial exploitation of new media opportunities in the UK for leading sports organisations.
New Media
Diversification
Managed the launch of the sports channel within a online content portal on behalf of a leading global mobile telecoms business.
Old Media
Enhanced Distribution
Designed new economic incentives for the distributors of branded television channels in the UK and Eire.
Television
International Expansion
Led growth initiatives through the bidding, negotiation and launch of branded television services throughout Europe.
STAY IN TOUCH
Sign up for thought-provoking posts from Oxford Strategy.
