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Strat-Exx Decision Brief

WHERE TO PLAY • CEO • SPRINT • FROM 12 WEEKS • PORTFOLIO DECISION

A focused growth portfolio for your company.

When “Where to Play” is especially valuable

You and your management team have committed to growth. Now regions, segments and portfolios compete for capital and management attention. Or the opposite situation: the company is in crisis. The ability to act on new markets, technologies and growth fields must be preserved. The critical question is which of these markets and related initiatives you should prioritize from a CEO perspective – and which you should not. Specifically, this means deciding …

Decide

  • Which 2–5 growth fields should receive genuine investment priority
  • Which initiatives to deepen, adjust, defer or stop
  • How to reallocate capital and resources across regions, segments and portfolios

Because

  • market size, internal advocacy or a powerful sponsor do not yet establish a right-to-win.
  • parallel initiatives otherwise tie up capital, sales capacity and management bandwidth.
  • indiscriminate allocation dilutes growth and margins.
01

VALUE LEVER 1 · DESIRED OUTCOME

Quickly determine which growth fields deserve your capital.

You receive a robust portfolio decision – not another priority list:

  • Your growth portfolio becomes comparable. Regions, segments and product portfolios are assessed based on potential, profitability and right-to-win.
  • Your 2–5 strongest fields receive genuine priority. Every ongoing initiative receives a clear decision: invest, deepen, adjust or stop.
02

VALUE LEVER 2 · HIGH DECISION CONFIDENCE

Your portfolio decision holds up because all fields are comparable.

Each field is assessed against three investment tests:

  • Prove economic attractiveness. Market size, growth, profitability and momentum are quantified on a comparable basis. Result: quantified potential instead of strategic labels.
  • Establish the right-to-win. Competitive position, customer access and differentiation show whether your company can win. Result: market attractiveness is not confused with the ability to win.
  • Clarify investment merit. Capital requirements, management capacity and expected earnings contribution are assessed together. Result: a board-ready investment decision for each growth field.
03

VALUE LEVER 3 · FAST DECISION

In around 12 weeks, you can turn a diverse set of businesses into a focused investment portfolio

The approach shortens the path from many plausible options to a well-founded capital and resource allocation decision.

  • Weeks 1–3: Create comparability. Regions, segments, product portfolios and initiatives are structured using a shared decision logic.
  • Weeks 4–9: Quantify the fields. Potential, profitability, competitive position and right-to-win are substantiated for each option.
  • Weeks 10–12: Focus and decide. Investment priorities, initiative decisions and the management decision are finalized.

The principle. First create comparability, then prioritize, then decide. Speed comes from a shared decision logic – not from less rigor.

04

VALUE LEVER 4 · LOW MANAGEMENT EFFORT

Your leadership team stays decision-ready in day-to-day operations.

Strat-Exx consolidates portfolio, market and performance data into a shared basis for decision-making – without a major strategy project. Only four inputs are required from your organization:

  • existing market, segment, portfolio and performance data,
  • ongoing growth initiatives, investments and the relevant pipeline,
  • perspectives from corporate and BU leadership, Strategy, Sales and Finance,
  • management decisions at three clearly prepared decision points.
05

VALUE LEVER 5 · LIMITED INVESTMENT RISK

You invest only when attractiveness and right-to-win are aligned.

The greater risk is not an incomplete portfolio analysis. It is spreading capital, sales capacity and management attention across initiatives that never achieve critical scale. The approach limits this risk:

  • All fields are assessed against the same criteria – no regional truths.
  • 2–5 investable growth fields instead of a broad wish-list portfolio.
  • A clear investment decision for each field and clear consequences for every ongoing initiative.
  • A transparent rationale for the Board, owners or Executive Management.

Proven experience. At an industrial company with approximately €2 billion in revenue, more than 30 initiatives were consolidated into four growth fields and investments were redirected accordingly.

06

By project end, all the evidence required for decision-making is on the table – ready to repeat at any time:

  1. a shared Business Portfolio Map spanning regions, segments and product portfolios,
  2. a quantified Growth Opportunity Map covering attractiveness, profitability and right-to-win,
  3. an evidence profile for each growth field covering potential, competitive position and investment requirements,
  4. a prioritized investment portfolio of 2–5 growth fields,
  5. a board-ready investment and initiative decision: invest, deepen, adjust or stop,
  6. a 90-day implementation agenda for capital, management capacity and ongoing initiatives.

The benchmark. The number of initiatives assessed is not what matters; what matters is the quality of capital allocation: pursue profitable opportunities earlier, concentrate resources and exit weak fields decisively.

CEO Briefing

Concise, for your next leadership meeting.

When Where to Play pays off for you, how we approach it and what you have on the table at the end: on three pages as PDF.

Which growth fields deserve the next investment – and which do not?