Consulting
Achieve your organization's full potential with a strategic plan that addresses your needs now and in the future.
Universal Creative Solutions provides strategic consulting to develop plans for organizations to thrive for the long term. We provide the breakdown, research, and plan required to make some of the most important decisions for your company. Our work helps organizations implement new business practices company or department-wide. Our strategic consultants tackle your organization’s most important decisions with well-developed methodology and experience. We design plans uniquely developed for your team and resources, or we help you achieve the required resources and build up your teams to achieve the goals. No matter how complex or how vital the high-level management decisions may be, count on Universal Creative Solutions to provide the strategy and insights you need to succeed.
What is Strategy consulting?
Strategy consulting is a high-level strategic advisory role focused on major decisions for organizations. It covers massive organization shifting decisions such as large cost saving campaigns, major purchases or investments, organizational restructuring, market shifts, and repositioning, as well as major product changes or creation. Strategy Consultants focus on providing an unbiased perspective with in-depth industry knowledge. They are calculated, critical thinkers even in the most intricate obscure organizational shifts. It’s a type of management consulting that focuses on potential outcomes and best practice implementation planning during difficult decision-making stages of any organization. Strategic Consultants often work solely with upper management and high-level decision-makers on issues that required detailed analysis and precise execution planning. They work to organize and clarify a large set of data regarding the requirements and potential outcomes of the most impactful decisions an organization can make. Strategic consultants handle research, provide detailed analysis, and position organizations in the most beneficial positions possible by providing the strategic plan which is then implemented by the company. Their recommendations on high-level management topics drive the growth strategies, savings strategies, and optimizations these companies need to thrive in any business and competitive environment.
Why Do Organizations Hire Strategy Consultants
Now that you know a bit more about strategy consulting, let’s discuss when and under what circumstances organizations hire a strategy consultant. Consultants are often hired to focus their efforts 100% on projects or strategies when the corporate officers are too busy to dedicate the full amount of effort required. Additionally, consultants are used as an outside unbiased view of issues when primary decision-makers are potentially too tied to the outcomes to have a critical view from another perspective. These consultants are often experts in their field and may not be affordable or required for full-time employment in-house for all the organizations that contract their time. They may already have experience solving the strategic problems the organization is about to enter. Strategic consultants may also help provide a wider variety of working hours and add additional teams on a temporary as-needed basis for the project. No need to get your teams up to speed or hire additional team members who may not have a role when the project is complete. Their connections outside of the organization's network are likely to play a pivotal role in providing the external feedback indispensable to your success.
The world changes at a rapid pace, so organizations need leading professionals to help them make vital decisions about their direction and pathways to make or increase profits. The decision-makers have a lot invested in their organizations and may have a difficult time seeing when it’s time for important changes. Strategy consultants help by providing pivotal guidance and plans of action to help organizations achieve their goals.
Do You Need a Strategy Consultant?
There are a wide variety of situations where a Strategic Consultant can be useful. They aren’t always employed specifically for major planned changes but can be useful for strategizing improvements to a variety of business areas. In the next section, we cover a variety of services we provide within the strategy consulting umbrella. Additionally, here are some questions to ask which may mean it’s time to hire a strategic consultant:
Are you planning significant enterprise-level decisions? Do you feel like your organization is struggling in an area that would require high-level adjustments and a thorough strategy to result in a successful change? Are your organization’s decisions based on a feeling rather than the data because it’s too difficult to organize or make sense of it?Is the decision you are about to make have a significant financial impact?Is your current business structure leading to a high turnover rate?
No or little productivity support or tracking tools
With today’s technology enabling teams and individuals to do more than ever it’s important to implement these tools where and when they can provide the most value. Choosing the right tools and building their use into your workflows is an important operations process. However, when you are considering company-wide changes to these tools it may be time to discuss the overall strategy and goals for the program before proceeding.
Team has a Difficult time making decisions
When your team has trouble unifying decisions or taking the decisions made and turning them into new processes it may mean that the issue runs deeper than one team. Strategic consultants can provide company-wide alignment to fix issues that are trickling down to the teams.
Strategic consultants can support your organization in a myriad of ways. If you’re unsure if your current organizational hurdles match these needs, contact us and we can help apply the right professional and skillset to nearly any operational issue.
Any organization can use strategic support even if you don’t fit a specific situation detailed here. Whether you feel like you have everything you need to make the right choices for your organization we’re here to discuss your current strategies to provide any additional insights available.
Financial Decisions
Major financial decisions are important forks in the road for your company. While strategic consultant teams may include financial advisors and business tax advisors, you may already have these types of advisors on call. In that case, a strategic consultant can focus the support in theorizing and planning out the opportunities or drawbacks that the financial decisions create and the organization-wide changes that may be required.
Financials in the Red
It takes a lot of will power to admit when things aren’t going well. Hopefully, before you get to this point you have already spoken to a variety of professionals. However, when the financials are in the Red with no visible date of improvement, it may be time to discuss the company's strategy as a way of improving the bottom line.
Losing Market Share
New competition in your market? Known competitors picking up the business you used to have? Losing market share can happen in a variety of ways. At times, it may be time to look at the direction of the company to ensure these losses are mitigated. Or, if you’re pivoting to new markets, speaking with a strategic consultant can help ensure those loses are made up from gains in the new direction.
High Turnover - Including High-Level Executives
Individuals sticking with one company for their entire career is rare these days. However, if you’re seeing a high turnover rate it may be due to toxic company culture. It’s an important indicator that it may be time to bring in a strategic consulting to analyze the issues and provide strategic realignment to create a positive work environment.
Customer Dissatisfaction
Are your customer surveys returning with negative feedback or are you seeing an increase in negative reviews? While it may be to specific areas or departments, it could also be a misalignment with company strategy and consumer expectations. A strategy consultant can direct the strategy to better align the business practices with customer expectations or direct the adjustments to messaging which may be causing confusion.
Disruptive Technologies
Disruptive technologies are having positive and negative effects on a variety of industries. Whether you are creating the next disruptive tech or trying to navigate a new business landscape because of one, hiring a strategic consultant brings a new perspective for utilizing the moment or overcoming these obstacles.
Artificial Intelligence
The next wave of the industry will likely heavily rely on artificial intelligence to augment and amplify the possibilities in almost every aspect of our lives. Strategic consulting will ensure your organization is positioned to take advantage of these new developments as they happen. While AI seems to be the promise of every up and coming software, its practical applications are still being developed. We keep up to date with the latest changes so you can take advantage of AI when it’s ready to support your organization’s unique set of goals and processes.
Strategy Development
Strategic planning makes up an indispensable part of business operations. It is essentially a roadmap towards the company's goals and objectives and is always subject to change as it relies on a variety of factors to ensure favorable results. A company’s vision must be evergreen and evolving. A strategic plan needs to be constantly reassessed in order for it to work against inevitable disruptions to growth and development. While business leaders in the industry make these challenges manageable, experienced strategic consultants, hold a high-level of expertise in developing structured and strategic plans that not only set a clear direction for the company’s future, but also create a field of opportunities with the least risks. We make sure goals are specific, strategy supports inherent data and company's proven capabilities, and goals are aligned with that of the company's.
Strategic Planning for Short term, Mid Term, and Long Term Goals
The mainstay of strategy is a well-developed plan. We work with your teams to gather the information, data, objectives, and key results required to reach new heights. We take that information and develop a path towards success which often includes several stages. Short term planning to provide the base and resources necessary for the next steps. Mid-term planning to expand and accelerate the organization towards the final phases. And long term planning which takes the strides made from mid-term planning and turns it into sustained growth to achieve these goals and for whatever comes next.
An important part of any plan is having all the key components analyzed. With the advent of faster processing and data processing tools, it’s imperative that data research, aggregation, and analysis be a part of your decision-making process. Whether you have these teams necessary to provide this analysis or not, it takes a strong strategic consultant to turn that information into actionable insights. It often starts with the right questions, before you even attempt to gather data to make sure you have all the necessary information so that the end result is information that answers the questions and more.
There are several stages to full phase operational execution: strategy, operations, and implementation. It’s important that each successive stage has a complete picture of what was intended from the strategic plan. We provide the full roadmap from strategy to specific operations and through implementation. However, not every organization requires support at each phase so the strategy has to be well laid out and have each further stage considered. We make sure the strategic plan can be followed through each successive phase regardless of who leads them.
Growth hacking seems to be all the rage these days, but there is an upside and downside to growth (especially if done without a plan). Universal Creative Solutions works to align goals with growth strategies that leave the organization in a positive position at each stage. Without the right plan in place, organizations can end up in over their heads financially, contractually, or buried in customer complaints and bad press. Don’t let a lack of growth strategy put your organization in a tough spot.
Developing products requires a strategy unto itself. Product strategy encompasses market research, user feedback, product design, sales strategy, and so much more. Whether you’re in the beginning stages of developing a product or in the middle of the next big thing, we can help drive the strategy you need to be successful.
Strong branding makes all the difference in crowded markets. To ensure yours stands out it’s important to work with strategy consultants to build a cohesive and crystal clear branding messaging and iconography. Brand strategy consultants will help you in a variety of ways to improve customer awareness of your brand by positioning the company in the right areas, at the right time, with the right message. They take a look at the history of the brand, other strong brands in the niche, and plans for upcoming changes to enhance the final results before launch.
Does your organization have a centralized decision-making process to ensure results meet or exceed expectations? If not, it may be time to work with a strategic consultant to develop a process to ensure strong decisions. If you already have one, it’s always good to get a review of current processes to get feedback on any new methodologies that could be useful to integrate or replace your current model.
Sustainable Growth PlanningOne of the most important times in an organization’s history is periods of large growth. However, those periods of growth comes with a host of challenges that a strategic consultant is well trained in planning for and solving before they become issues. Strategy consulting can help smooth these growth periods out by helping your organization achieve continuous sustainable growth and the underlying processes and plans that allow you to scale at any rate.
It takes years of experience working with a large variety of businesses to understand what works and what doesn’t. Strategic consultants can help define your business process based on their models of a successful organization. Get expert advice and implementation on some of the most important processes of your organization instead of adjusting based on some blog or hearsay from fellow business owners boasting of success you can’t verify.
No matter the size of the strategic decisions your organization is considering, it’s important to get as much professional advice as possible. Strategic consultants provide that critical external viewpoint to ensure success through an unbiased experienced voice. Make sure you are working with a strategic consultant that has experience in the industry, project, plan, or teams to partner with the best guide for your success.
While we also handle operations implementation, planning for strategic execution maintains a higher-level view of how management and C-Suite organize, train, and control the execution of these plans throughout the organization. Execution is the final result of so many decisions across the entire company. In order to ensure successful execution a central plan, culture, and processes management should be planned, rolled out, and monitored/reported on to ensure adoption and continued execution as intended.
Competitive Advantage
A company is able to create a competitive edge and unique customer desirability that guarantee profit maximization by enriching its capabilities. Strategic consulting aims to help define and utilize strengths that make up the business’ core and purpose so that it outperforms its competitors. We help identify the right determinants to focus on to broaden opportunities for growth and ensure business sustainability.
Organizational Efficiency & Effectiveness
Improving business processes while minimizing expenditures are key objectives to every business’ success. We assist companies in implementing their business strategies by going in depth with the factors that drive up their employees’ potential. High performance and team effectiveness contribute immensely to the company's culture and brand which ultimately enhances its ability to achieve goals. To consistently meet ideal results, operations consultants comprehensively evaluate management systems in order to appropriately apply necessary changes without affecting chances of advancement and improvisation. We recognize gaps in the system that keep an organization from being a functional and efficacious one.
Customer-Focused Strategy
Customers are a business' source of growth, a measure of success, and the reason for its existence. An effective customer strategy therefore is vital to every company’s success. The digital world is continuously evolving and is making any means of reaching and capturing customers' attention even more convoluted. It is extremely challenging to lead conversions and maintain authority in the market. Business consultants play an essential role in determining the right markets to target while managing and dealing with emerging ones. We highlight methods of establishing continuous positive relationships that provide distinct and promising value to your customers through developing customer-focused strategies that result in stronger and more profitable connections. Today we face challenges that coincide with other factors such as technological breakthroughs and advancements, new markets and complex needs, and disruptive and increasing competition. A successful customer strategy must clearly define its ability to provide unique customer experiences that meet the company’s goals, values and needs
Looking to innovate with new products or services? Investing and allocating time and budget to strategically develop a fail proof business plan and innovation strategy is vital for every business when introducing new ideas. A strategic plan helps businesses anticipate how these products and services survive time, resist breakthroughs and battle through all other challenges in a dynamic world. Innovative strategy aims to fuel organisations to intentionally analyze targeted markets and set new objectives that keep up with technological advancements. We’ll look into the ideal innovation types that best suit your business' values and resources. We help scout new grounds for growth and determine options that help you build a flexible and structured framework for short term goals which built into your long term goals aligned with your company vision.
Business & Nonprofits Strategy
Strategy consultants specialize in a variety of organization types. We work with businesses and nonprofits of all sizes to ensure your organization meets its mission in a sustainable fashion to continue the mission indefinitely.
Functional Strategy
A company’s functional strategy is used to support other strategies within the company and helps keep them together by aiding in the achievement of goals and objectives of each department. For it to work properly, all department strategies have to be rooted in functional recommendations and oriented to the same goals. We work with a variety of departments to ensure functional strategy at every level of the organization.
Process Updates
The need to consistently transform and progress has become vital for organisations to continually compete and cope with drastic global changes. Working with consultants helps keep your goals and brand intact by ensuring a smooth transition in your development plans. A concrete and well structured management plan influences a positive company culture and leads a successful implementation of software, business, and system changes. Change management consultation enables business leaders to assess and evaluate changes to extract the most advantageous course of action.
IT & Digital Strategy
Strategic consultants assist in analyzing the competitive advantages technology can provide for your business. We aim to improve your current digital activities by creating a lasting and effective online presence that maximizes your visibility to the right audience. We work with a team of experts who are able to track and monitor your business’ performance and advise on the necessary actions and tools to adapt and to keep you in the lead.
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation involves integration of various technologies into the industry to modify processes, values, and customer experiences to meet new market requirements. Strategic business consultants aid businesses in adapting and leveraging these changes and opportunities in a strategic and organised way. A successful digital transformation strategy should be able to create opportunities and make use of these beneficial possibilities of new technologies and digital tools to a company’s advantage. Our consultation services enable organizations to strategically innovate and develop creative approaches to address these digital transformations. Consultants aim to explore the value of digital evolution and how it affects and influences trade across various business processes and industries so that you can gain market share.
Cost of Strategic Consultants
Strategy Consulting is one of the most specialized and boutique aspects of consulting. Thus it comes with a higher price tag than other forms of consultancies. However, when dealing with decisions at this level, it’s essential to get as much professional advice as possible to ensure the results can be expected rather than hoped for. Strategic consultants will provide one of the highest multiples of return for the investment because they deal with major improvements or changes at the organization. Whether you are focused on saving money in some form of reduction or expanding to new heights, strategic consultants can help you define the right path for you and your organization.
Hiring Universal Creative Solutions
Universal Creative solutions serves as your trusted advisor and lead expert on strategies in corporate, consumer, operations, marketing and management. We influence leaders to think creatively to overcome major challenges that directly affect the company’s ability to achieve optimal growth. Universal Creative Solutions has over a decade of professional strategy experience guiding organizations to meet and exceed their goals. We help organizations build the teams, skills, and products needed to thrive in today’s complex world. We work to achieve sustained profitability, develop strategies that maximize any segment of the company, and implement the tools and technology required to achieve your goals. Our strategic planning opens up new market opportunities enabling you to grow your business and achieve your ideal return on investment (ROI).
Universal Creative Solutions has worked with several organizations to sell, plan, and run national and international tours for public speakers and creatives in a variety of specializations.
Universal Creative Solutions also worked to produce creative works of art with a variety of artists from around the world. We plan, organize, and lead the teams to develop and successfully distribution their products. We also maintained a consulting role with regards to ongoing business development.
A wide variety of services to improve the performance of any project, department, technology, or team critical to your success.
Complete solutions for the most complex problems impeding growth, impact, traction, and any challenges in your way.
Our ground level implementation of operational strategies - from report to reality in no time flat.