Strategy. Part 1: Learn the skills used by the leading management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG, et al. (Business Consulting Books)

Do you want to develop a counterintuitive strategy insight and/or lead a team to develop a counterintuitive strategy insight?

You have enough experience to know that frameworks, decision trees, applying MECE and 80/20 principles, hypotheses, and structured problem solving are important, but they are not enough. You know a brilliant insight often looks like a mediocre insight. A great strategy often looks like a bad strategy. Analysis is messy. Data is flawed and misleading. Best practices routinely fail. Hypotheses change. Data changes. Linear thinking often does not work.

This book helps solve this problem. We present the background to a client. You get to follow the design of the strategy study and watch how the solution is developed. Over the past 10 years on StrategyTraining.com and FIRMSconsulting.com, you have seen us help numerous clients solve complex business problems: developing a big data strategy, a corporate strategy, a digital & IT strategy, a pandemic & disaster strategy, a luxury brands strategy, a turnaround & transformation strategy, and more—all based on the combined best practices of the author and the ex-McKinsey, BCG et al., partners who produce all the strategy training programs on StrategyTraining.com.


This book shows you the daily steps, actions, processes, and considerations that go into developing a unique insight for a major company under tight timelines and intense scrutiny. You will get to see which data is used, why it was used, which data was discarded and why it was discarded.


On a daily and weekly basis, you will see us use strategy considerations, engagement update reports, storyboards, analyses tools, strategy maps, client management tools and more, summarizing the best practices from ex-McKinsey, BCG et al., partners and our most successful clients, to help you solve mankind’s most pressing problems. The book helps you learn the process to solve strategy and business problems like a strategy partner. You will get to see the numerous contradictions, nuances, and trade-offs that the highest-performing strategy thinkers face. You will learn how to make ethical and balanced decisions based on who is the client and who is not the client. The core of this book revolves around the daily guides to show you how the study is designed, planned, staffed, structured, and run, all the way from focus interviews to day-in-the-life-of studies to financial analysis, financial modeling, and case studies. The book is divided into weeks. Each week is split into days. Days are split into key activities and observations from the study.


While we can’t guarantee the results of each reader, clients who have used the book and FIRMSconsulting Insiders who have used the accompanying online training program consisting of 270+ videos on which the book is based report:


Deeper insights

Greater recognition

Rapid promotions

Deeper understanding of executives

Happier teams

Greater productivity

Project success

Superior assignments


The book takes you step by step, week by week and day by day through the process to receive a problem, frame the problem, structure the analysis, assemble the team, manage the team, and manage the client toward the solution. You get to go inside the mind of a strategy partner. That is the greatest benefit of this book. At times you will see references to additional resources that our most loyal members, FIRMSconsulting Insiders and SLIDES members, have access should they need to dive deeper into a specific topic (e.g., competitive strategy, digital & IT strategy, implementation, problem-solving, etc.).


Note: Due to the page number restrictions for print books, this book is split into two parts. You can follow the rest of the engagement in Part 2.