Strategy is a transplant from the conduct of war to the conduct of business. Because of these military roots, strategy literature and advice often carry two deep biases, viewing business as a war against competitors and companies as armies with a commander-in-chief. These biases wrongly shift the focus of strategy formulation and underestimate the challenges of strategy execution.

For us at Verea Group LLC,business strategy is about building a stronger bond with a growing number of customers. Only companies that consistently focus on the customer and deliver ever more compelling value can successfully compete and generate superior returns on the labor and capital of their employees and investors.

At Verea Group LLC, we work with management to develop and implement value-enhancing strategies in which industry structure and a company’s capabilities are leveraged to continuously deepen customer knowledge and translate it into higher value-added offers.

For many companies, the de facto strategy on the ground can be quite different from management’s stated strategy. Unlike in the military, management’s strategy is only a start. It can be successfully implemented only with employees’ long-term commitment, and no commitment can be sustained without strong employee engagement.

Verea Group LLC works with senior management to carefully craft the right portfolio of employee incentives, training and empowerment enabling and driving successful strategy implementation.

In a world of constant change only flexible companies endure; yet change is the crucible of strategy. If we were right yesterday, how could we be wrong today? The challenges to build strategic flexibility and implement strategic change are numerous and involve cognitive and emotional biases, as well as vested interests and corporate politics.

At Verea Group LLC, we work with senior management to build strategic resilience, allowing companies to successfully pursue their strategic objectives under different likely scenarios. We also help senior management identify and build strategic optionality, enabling companies to adapt and pursue new opportunities as they emerge.

Verea Group LLC works with clients on specific strategy questions and on building strong and ongoing decision support for the strategy formulation, actualization and implementation processes.