Many companies have an overarching business strategy, but lack a solid technology strategy to support it. There is generally a strategy for marketing, talent recruitment, growth, lead generation, customer retention, and other important initiatives, but what value will they provide to your business if your technology can’t support them.

Technology has the most potential for empowering a business strategy and creating differentiators, yet many companies don’t spend enough time putting together a robust technology strategy plan as they should. And if they do, one of two actions will occur. Either their well thought out strategy will end up in a document that collects dust on a shelf in the back of some executive’s office, or the strategy they came up with is not actionable and lacks the accompanying tactical roadmap to get it done.

A good strategy is born out of a philosophy of purposeful experimentation with a repeatable, proven process. These processes are engineered to get a leadership team aligned and motivated to break the log jam of analysis and actually get changes implemented. Everyone says they have all of these things, making strategy a paper sword.

Since everyone from design firms, ad agencies, developers, to media companies “does strategy”, how do you separate the less-than-effective partners from the real deal, without getting “strategied out”?

Here are a few things to look for when choosing a partner to help you develop a strategy:

• Process – The proposal you receive should be extremely descriptive about what to expect from the process, and should highlight the major steps of the process.
• Homework – Any good partner will expect you to do your homework and provide in advance of the workshop information that will give them context and background:
  • Business strategy planning documents
  • Previous plans and/or initiatives documentation
  • List of the closest competitors or competitive products or services
  • Voice of the customer data like service statistics, issue backlogs, survey feedback and other customer related data.
• References – Be specific. Ask for at least three references specifically from clients who have been through the prospective partner’s strategy development process. Make sure at least two of these are from the last six months and at least one of them is in a related industry. Don’t be concerned if it takes a day or two for your partner to provide these. They hopefully are asking permission from their client to use them (yes, each time, as a courtesy to that wonderful client providing the reference). The best is if you can look through their portfolio and choose the reference accounts that you want to hear from.
• Deliverables – Be very clear on what the deliverables are. Are you getting a report, recommendations, estimates, time lines, and/or a follow up meeting? Ask for an example of the final report, even if it is anonymized.
• Transparency – Don’t be afraid to share your past experiences, and misgivings if you’ve had less than positive results. A good consultant will appreciate the candor, get to the underlying concerns, and address them for you directly.

Your leadership team knows your strategy better than any outside consultant ever will. A good consultant will also not try to tell you how to create your strategy. Rather, they will offer to facilitate getting that strategy out of your team in a clear and executable way to help you grow your business.