Strategic Advising: What it is and how strategic advisors help
Why trust EnticEdge?
At EnticEdge, we are healthcare and wellness business consultants dedicated to helping companies clarify and align around their competitive advantage, which we call your authentic edge! Our team brings 30+ years of healthcare expertise in strategic advising, value mapping, business consulting, client experience, team and cross-departmental alignment, and more, all tailored to helping teams achieve mission-driven growth.
In rapidly evolving markets, strategic advising is an essential resource for mission-driven companies. Strategic advising is integral for organizations looking to navigate complex business environments, drive growth, and build a competitive edge. It's particularly beneficial for companies at pivotal moments, such as during periods of significant growth, change, or when facing challenging conditions. This post explores the essence of strategic advising and the multifaceted role of a strategic advisor, as well as how our team at EnticEdge tailors this role to empower your organization's growth and evolution.
Understanding Strategic Advising
Strategic advising provides clients with expert guidance and insights to help them make informed decisions, align their strategies with their business goals, and reactivate what’s needed for growth. Strategic advisors are an external perspective that you bring into your team, ranging from one person to a team. The role of strategic advisors is to get up to speed quickly on both the subject matter, the team dynamics, the state of the business, and the challenges faced, in order to provide an informed point of view.
Strategic advisors offer a combination of experience, unbiased perspective, strategic insights, analysis, and an orientation toward driving results. Strategic advisors often uncover hidden gems within an organization - this could be a team bias that has become a hurdle to overcome; an underused or inefficient internal operational system; lack of alignment and clarity around the company vision; and more.
Strategic advising might involve:
Understanding the Business:
Deep dive into the company's mission, vision, values, objectives, and strategies to ensure alignment and division/team understanding.
Analyze the current business model, operations, and market position to pinpoint hurdles and opportunities.
Market and Competitive Analysis:
Conduct thorough research on market trends, customer preferences, and competitive landscape.
More clearly segment target audiences to reach them more effectively.
Identify market opportunities.
Strategic Planning:
Collaborate with the teams to develop long-term and short-term strategic plans at a corporate level and at a departmental level (marketing, operations, sales, etc).
Revisit and help align strategies with the company's goals and market opportunities.
Implementation Guidance:
Offer actionable steps to execute on the strategic roadmap.
Provide frameworks and tools to monitor progress and adapt strategies as needed.
Help teams understand their specific role in achieving company success to provide them with the benchmarks needed to make quality decisions.
Performance Evaluation:
Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure success.
Regularly review and adjust strategies based on performance data.
Advisory and Support:
Serve as a sounding board for leaders, offering expert advice and external perspective.
Provide ongoing support to ensure alignment and adaptability of strategies.
Capacity Building:
Help enhance the skills and capabilities of the team to execute strategies effectively. Strategic advisors might work as an added team member for a period of time and to provide real-time insights, or stay fully external - coming in to help with a set number of hours per month.
Facilitate workshops or training sessions as needed.
Core Facets of EnticEdge Strategic Advising:
Clarity and Alignment: Ensuring that your messaging and objectives are clear, coherent, and aligned across all levels of your organization. This supports the health of the company’s brand and drives growth.
Sustained Focus: Guiding leaders to focus on core goals and avoid distractions ensures that short-term attractions do not derail long-term objectives.
Critical Recommendations: Providing honest, sometimes challenging advice on team dynamics, processes, and strategies to enhance effectiveness and efficiency.
Decision-Making Frameworks: Helping to establish benchmarks and frameworks that aid in consistent, strategic decision-making.
Deep-Dive Engagement: Taking an intimate understanding of your business to offer tailored, context-aware advice combined with experience and insights from a legacy of advising.
Agile Strategy Development: Creating flexible strategies that adapt to market dynamics and your company's evolving needs.
Hands-On Implementation Guidance: Providing not just advice but also practical guidance in implementing strategic initiatives.
Navigating Complexity: Offering clarity and direction through complex challenges and transitions.
Building Capacity: Enhancing your team's capabilities and resilience to ensure sustainable growth.
Driving Innovation: Encouraging innovative thinking and strategic foresight to keep you ahead of the curve.
Strategic Advising vs. Consulting: What’s the difference? Are they the same thing?
Consultants and strategic advisors overlap but consultants come in a wide variety, from technical or scientific subject matter consultants, to technology integration consultants, to procurement consulting. While independent strategic advisors might also be referred to as strategic consultants, and are in a consultancy role, strategic advisors are expected to bring depth and breadth of knowledge, and an ability to see across departments, divisions, markets, etc.
Making an Impact
Strategic advising is not just about guidance, but often times partnership, transformation, and building a future-ready organization. Strategic advisors are dedicated to understanding your vision, aligning with your objectives, and navigating complexities to achieve lasting success.
