The short-term day-to-day challenges can cause decision-makers to lose perspective on what is needed for the long run.

Without a vivid and disseminated ambition for the future, there is no clear mandate for management.

• A lack of consensus within the Executive Team and the Board about which strategic path to follow represents a considerable risk to companies and causes confusion and conflict all the way down from leadership to the operations.

Even if there is a clear north, without actionable steps to achieve it, there will be no progress:

• While the ambition is important, our belief is that its translation into a clear and balanced plan is equally as important in order to guarantee that the company evolves in the right direction. Otherwise potentially good strategic insights and ideas go to waste.
• Such a plan must make evident which are the fundamental projects that the company needs, the KPIs to track, the governance methods to keep the plan on track, and capabilities that are needed to develop it.

In a way, all companies must return to the strategic plan as the core governance ritual to ensure calm, leadership focus and a common reference to decide priorities and drive core decisions.

We address Strategic Planning in a pragmatic manner, facilitating decision-making, building consensus, and translating the ambition into feasible initiatives.

We believe that companies must take their destiny into their own hands. Leadership must ultimately decide the direction, believe in it, and own the plan. Consequently, over the years, working with organizations across countries and sectors, we’ve learned that our differential and value lies in establishing a comprehensive decision-making process involving co-creation with the leadership and moreover, translating this strategy into clear and actionable steps which consider the reality of each client.

With this mindset in place, we help our clients:

1. Bring together, evaluate, and prioritize multiple perspectives to assess paths available, results, and risk:
   • There is no “right or wrong” in strategic planning, it depends on the ambition of the company, and we believe that our clients know their business better than anyone else. From the outset, we work with you to determine the decision-making process and co-creation method which best involves the management and board.
   • We consider and evaluate both internal and external outlooks e.g. business goals, historical criteria for decisions, business imperatives, team composition, strengths, competitive landscape, market data, trends, expert and client interviews, regulatory changes, etc.
2. Translate strategy into concrete actions that are tailored, implementable, and traceable:
   • We help design a strategic roadmap with associated financial modeling which outlines a coherent set of projects, governance methods, KPIs, and expected results that address the company-specific challenges and desired milestones.
   • But that’s not all – plans only become a reality with the commitment and buy-in from all the stakeholders involved. Those responsible for implementing the plan must be in accordance with the targets and speed. Thus, we catalyze at all points ownership of the plan – in a typical Strategic Planning project the final presentation is done by the project owners not by Integration.

• Increased alignment and ownership regarding strategic decisions among the leadership team
• Deep understanding of the company’s opportunities and external factors that can impact the next cycle
• Widened strategic view and fresh stimulus through access to external experts, leaders, and benchmarks
• Definition of a clear value proposition and achievable ambition for the cycle
• Assessment of the capabilities needed to accomplish the ambition
• Clear strategic pillars and tactical initiatives set to translate the ambition into a robust plan
• Creation of a feasible strategic roadmap, with clarity of the main gates and financial implications for the cycle

Integration’s method is based on a co-creation process with our clients focused on generating alignment and momentum.

Strategic planning is a widely used term that can elicit multiple interpretations and differences in points of view. For us, Strategic Planning should be a pragmatic process of assessing strategic paths and actions focused on the midterm horizon, usually ranging from 3 to 5 years depending on the sector and the client’s context.

We believe in this practical horizon and do not indulge in futurology exercises, involving long-term market projections. Long-term megatrends are important to serve as a background for the strategic thinking process, but we believe in planning moves that can concretely affect the company life in the next 5 years.

We approach a Strategic Planning project in 2 main phases and 5 steps, going from strategic decisions to more tactical details:

The Strategic Roadmap is the final product, reflecting the strategy into a concrete plan for the company to execute, with clear pillars of actions and projects to be implemented over time. In our view, this is a fundamental step to guarantee that the strategic definitions become reality.

Integration has had the pleasure of working with many regional and international companies across Food & Beverage, Pharmaceuticals, Financial Sector, Logistic Operators, and Construction sectors.

Our professionals have developed an understanding of the market dynamics, best practices, and companies’ strategic decisions across geographies as well as industry segments. This allows us to bring robust and customized solutions to our clients that take into consideration the internal and external contexts.