A collection of articles and research that support strategic decision making
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For most recent articles – please click on link below:
Latest articles
Decision Making Course: South Africa August 2015
My friend and colleague, Dave Holland is part of a team presenting this course in South Africa in August 2015. I highly recommend it if you have interest in the subject.
It is designed to provide equity analysts as well members of strategy and finance teams within corporations and parastatals with a highly practical experience in understanding the core principles of corporate valuation, building a DCF valuation model and incorporating elements of decision analysis in this process.
Course details can be found at: DCF & DM Course and details of the course presenters below.
Please note: if you are interested in strategic decision-making but believe this course may be a little on the technical side, Genesis have a special offer on their Strategic Decision Pack. For £9.99 (normal price £40-00) you can buy our best practice framework to help you and your team make better decisions.
Genesis Strategic Decision Pack
The course presenters:
David Holland is a Senior Advisor to Credit Suisse and independent consultant based in Cape Town, South Africa. Until 2011, he was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse in London in charge of HOLT Valuation and Analytics, the research and development arm of Credit Suisse HOLT. He was responsible for improvements to the cash flow return on investment (CFROI) framework and other Credit Suisse valuation models, the development of custom solutions and investment products based on HOLT’s intellectual property and the generation of HOLT content for fund managers.
Warwick Blyth is a strategy consultant and EMEA Energy Practice Leader for Strategic Decisions Group (SDG). He has 20 years global consulting experience with a particular focus on the Energy sector. He has built decision and valuation models for many clients in an extensive range of industries and strategic situations and has an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. SDG is a US-based boutique strategy consulting firm and world leader in helping clients improve the quality of their decision making through structured processes and rigorous modelling.
Taking strategic decisions when faced with high uncertainty
Below is the link to an article we have written with the purpose of assisting individuals and organisations to take better strategic decisions and create more robust strategies in the face of great uncertainty.
It has been published with the intention of offering some practical tools to help overcome the challenges posed by these uncertainties.
If you would like a more in-depth discussion, please contact me, Simon Gifford, at Genesis Management Consulting.
Genesis – Strategic decisions in the face of uncertainty
Article summary – mind-map:
Click for full image:
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Global Economic Forecast (EIU)
Attached is the latest numerical EIU global forecast of the world economy and its major components. In a nutshell, things have picked up in the Western economies this year but will drop again next year and then there will be a gradual rise. The developing economies, although volatile, show higher growth rates.
The document that follows gives a few more details behind the numbers.
Genesis advice to individual organisations seeking to survive and grow is to dig deeper into the statistics (in-house and published) to discover real opportunities. As we increase the level of granularity, it will be apparent that there is significant deviation around the averages. The identification of winning and losing sectors, sub-sectors and companies point to the areas of opportunities for growth.
EIU numerical global forecast as at 18 Aug 2010
EIU global forecast summary Aug 2010
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How well are stock markets recovering – really (August 2010)
These days when reading the business press, it is not always easy to know where we are in terms of stock exchange recovery. It is easy to find in the same newspaper, one report discussing a recovery and huge gains in share prices; and another report discussing double dip recessions.
To try and get some perspective on how certain exchanges are recovering, I sourced and charted a few key index levels to help me see the “big picture” without the noise of daily fluctuations. I thought I would share this one page document with you.
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Quo vadis Europe?
A solid report offering high level forecasts for countries in Europe by PwC. They have done a good job in identifying the key drivers in the economies of the major players. You may not agree with all the forecasts but they offer a good starting point for a more granular discussion.
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How to prepare for unforeseen disruptions
In this short document, Rosabeth Moss Kanter provides some good advice to organisations in preparing for unforeseen disruptions.
http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/04/surprise-four-strategies-for-c.html
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Political and security risk by country
Here is an interesting world map showing political and security risk by country.
Strategic risk map of world
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Does your strategic planning drive your strategic decision making?
Here is a great HBR article on the gap between strategic planning and strategic decisions. It discusses how most strategic planning cycles generally do not dovetail with the need for a strategic decision in an organisation.
And if strategic planning does not drive decisions – what does it do?
A memorable quote when talking about strategic reviews in the article is captured below:
“Strategy reviews often amount to little more than business tourism. The executive committee flies in for a day, sees the sights, meets the natives, and flies out.”
The article does go on to explain how some organisations overcome this difficulty – or at least partly. I would recommend it as a good read for CEO’s, CFO’s and Strategy Directors.