Service
Strategy & Growth
Where to compete, how to win there, and what to stop doing to pay for it.
- Average revenue growth over plan, three years on
- +4.2 pts
- Typical time from first meeting to board-ready strategy
- 12 weeks
- Of strategy clients ask us back to help deliver it
- 70%
Overview
Corporate and business-unit strategy, portfolio choices, pricing and market entry for leadership teams that need a plan they can fund and defend to the board.
Strategy work fails in one of two ways. Either it describes an ambition without saying what the company will stop doing to fund it, or it is so hedged that nobody can tell what changed. We aim for neither. A Vertex strategy names the markets you will compete in, the ones you will leave, and the few investments that matter most, with the economics shown on one page.
Our teams are small and senior. A partner leads every engagement and stays in the room for it. We work from primary evidence: customer interviews, win-loss data, competitor cost structures and the margin by product and channel that most companies have never assembled in one place. That evidence usually settles arguments that have run inside the leadership team for years.
We judge the work by what happens after the board meeting. Clients who ask us to stay help us turn the strategy into a funded portfolio of initiatives with owners, milestones and a monthly review, because a plan that is not on the calendar is not a plan.
Questions we answer
What clients bring to this practice
- 01Our core market is flattening. Where does the next decade of growth come from?
- 02Which of our businesses should we fund, fix, or sell?
- 03Are we priced correctly, and how much margin are we leaving with customers?
- 04Is this adjacent market worth entering, and should we build, buy, or partner?
- 05How do we turn a strategy document into decisions the organization will act on?
- 06What would an activist investor say about our portfolio, and are they right?
What we do
How the practice can help
- 01
Corporate and portfolio strategy
We assess every business on its returns, its market position and its fit with the rest of the group, then set out what to fund, fix or exit.
- 02
Business-unit strategy
A clear statement of where a unit competes and how it wins, built on customer and competitor evidence rather than internal consensus.
- 03
Pricing and commercial excellence
Price architecture, discount governance and sales coverage, usually worth two to four points of margin within a year.
- 04
Market entry and adjacencies
Sizing, entry-mode choice and a staged plan with kill criteria, so a new market gets a fair test without becoming a sunk cost.
- 05
Growth diagnostics
A six-week review that separates market growth from share gain and price from volume, so leadership knows where growth actually came from.
- 06
Strategy into execution
Translating the strategy into a short list of funded initiatives, owners and quarterly milestones that the executive team reviews monthly.
Our work
Results from this practice
Industries
Where this practice works most often
Experts
Who leads the practice
How long does a strategy engagement take?
Most run ten to fourteen weeks. A focused question, such as a single market entry decision, can be answered in six.
Do you bring a house view on our industry?
We bring evidence and a point of view, but the recommendation is built from your customers, your economics and your competitors, not from a template.
Who from our side needs to be involved?
The chief executive and the leadership team for steering, plus a small core team of three to five people who work alongside ours day to day.
Do you stay for implementation?
If you want us to. Many clients keep a small team for the first two or three quarters to set up the cadence, then run it themselves.
Have a decision on the table?
Tell us what you are weighing. A partner will reply within two working days, and the first conversation is on us.