Chris C Fox ConsultingThis plan describes Chris C Fox Consulting and the services it offers to the financial services sector.Chris C Fox Consulting
CCFC
Organization_579ab135-75a3-4f84-9efb-87493e956048An independent strategy consultancy serving the financial services industry. It was founded in 2007 and is based in London and Surrey. We have particular expertise in:
* Financial services, especially life & pensions, banking and asset management.
* Corporate, business and marketing strategy.
* Growth, new market entry and turnaround strategy.
* Programme management and direction.
* Startups, and mergers and acquisitions.
* Target Operating Model (TOM) development.
* Intermediated (B2B2C) and direct (D2C) distribution.
* Digital disruption and digital marketing strategies.Leadership TeamsWe work with senior leaders and leadership teams to help them to develop and execute better strategies more effectively.Chris FoxFounder and principal, Chris Fox, is passionate about strategy. He is MBA-qualified and has over 25 years experience in the financial services sector. He has worked with a wide variety of leadership teams from FTSE100 boards to small startup teams, and on a wide range of strategic initiatives from £billions multi-national hostile takeovers to organic growth strategies such as new product and new business launches, and turnarounds. He is also an experienced interim manager, and has led restructures and target operating model (TOM) developments.Founder and PrincipalChris rolls his sleeves up and does work himself, rather than immediately trying to upsell you a cohort of more junior consultants while he moves onto the next sales opportunity.PerformerBetter Strategy (one decision at a time.)Vision_5509a8d6-32f5-440d-a1bd-48f33bc9a252Chris C Fox Consulting helps financial services decision makers develop & execute better strategies more effectively.Mission_5509a8d6-32f5-440d-a1bd-48f33bc9a252Mutual Respect and Trustin relationships. Even when two people violently disagree with each other, there is invariably some value to be gleaned from both of their perspectives.Rigourin analysis. Lazy analysis usually does nothing more than confirm existing preconceptions. Only by really pulling the data apart are you likely to find true insight.Differentiationby design. Organisations best achieve their potential by charting their own path through their competitive environment. Bland, me-too strategies achieve mediocre results. Successfully differentiated strategies are the result of the systemic analysis of each organisation's unique strengths and weaknesses, and of the changes and trends which present it with both challenges and opportunities.Experiencein teams. Experience counts. We will never try and cross-sell you a team of junior consultants while our more experienced staff go off in search of the next engagement.Disciplinein execution. A Peter Drucker said: "Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work." Successful strategy execution requires organisations to maintain focus and stay the course with the big exciting things as well as the small but essential things.AnalysisAnalyse your strategic environment, competitive future, and relative strengths and weaknessesGoal_60d27060-17be-4b55-bb56-c5bc41ab85e21Our preferred approach is to work with your existing teams to understand everything you already know about your capabilities and industry before overlaying our own extensive knowledge gained from reading widely and networking within the industry.
Organisations are often surprised at the amount of knowledge they already possess. However, it usually requires a skilled sleuth to hunt it down, cut through entrenched political positioning and preconceptions and synthesise it in a way that makes it actionable. We have a nose for getting to the bottom of things and are fluent in the languages spoken by different disciplines such as actuarial, finance, risk, operations, sales, marketing and HR.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." (W.Edwards Deming)FormulationFormulate your strategyGoal_533f45c8-f7e4-4918-9873-87f8c29adf072Strategy is fundamentally about choice. And choice requires options and alternatives. If you're faced with a single choice - "invest or fail" - you're not doing strategy.
Strategy requires you to develop and evaluate meaningful options and alternatives. It requires you to choose to pursue some, and, equally importantly, to choose to not pursue others. And it requires you to be able to describe those choices and the consequences you are seeking in a way that everyone in your organisation can understand and get behind.
In strategy, as with all choice, some stakeholders perceive themselves to have come out as winners while others will not. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Often, existing teams within an organisation are too close and too invested to be able to do this effectively, and objective outside help produces a better result.ArticulationArticulate your strategyGoal_fab6c05c-af6e-4fdf-871e-26f0916da85b3Even the most brilliant strategy will fail if you can't explain it so that people will be willing and able to execute it.
A strategy which is so vaguely expressed that it allows for everyone to continue with what they'd originally intended to do is unlikely to deliver results.
Strategy should be expressed in terms of vivid, clear and aligned mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, KPIs and targets, with clearly expressed initiatives to achieve them. Strategy should include the high-level explanations of what is to be achieved and why, as well as the detailed explanations of how it will be achieved.ReviewReview your strategyGoal_cfcee867-51cb-4560-bbd5-b72f5b8ee78f4Just because you already have a strategy, does not mean it would not benefit from external and independent review. Is it clearly articulated, are stakeholders and staff aligned behind it, is the business organised to deliver it effectively, and is it delivering the anticipated results?
The are all questions that can useful be asked by an experienced and independent reviewer. If you do have a problem, early identification can give you the opportunity to correct your course.ExecutionExecute your strategyGoal_c39e34aa-a993-490f-a994-ee78472ac7005Once your strategy is set, implementation can begin. However, as Helmuth von Moltke famously remarked: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy". The same is true of business strategy. No matter how carefully you plan, you cannot guarantee how customers, competitors and regulators will respond. In addition, experience shows that, after the initial hubris of the launch of a new strategy, organisations have a tendency to revert to what they were doing before.Strategy needs to be a living process, with regular, controlled and communicated tactical and strategic adjustments.
Strategy needs to be a living process, with regular, controlled and communicated tactical and strategic adjustments.
We provide programme management and direction that goes well beyond traditional project management and really gets to the heart of what is required to make your strategy succeed.Target Operating Model ("TOM")Develop and deliver your Target Operating Model (TOM)Goal_3ddd535f-6d5b-4484-942b-7fb0b17a24356All too often, charismatic leaders announce bold new strategies, and then simply sit back expecting their organisations to magically deliver them.
The same old machine won't magically produce a different result.
Strategy delivery invariably requires substantial change in terms of people, process and technology.This is where designing and delivering a Target Operating Model will help you to deliver your strategy.ProcessDesign and implement your strategic planning processGoal_1bcb363f-a545-49d1-afbf-1efb0ebdce577Most organisation do strategic planning on an annual basis, and review on a quarterly basis. Both planning and review require careful consideration if they are not to degenerate into tick box exercises or battles of political will between stakeholders.Interim ManagementManage part of your business on an interim basis, especially if it's undergoing significant strategic changeGoal_322cb1b1-b922-4ca4-81a9-54de5b9059128Change creates winners and losers. Sometimes, as a result of this, organisations find themselves with a division which is both being established and/or undergoing significant change, and without a suitable long-term leader.
An interim manager can help such a division undergo that change, while the organisation searches for a permanent candidate.
Often the skills required to manage the division through that period of change are different from the skills the organisation is looking for in a leader to lead the division beyond them. And an interim manager can provide a convenient scapegoat for the pain of change once the desired end-state is reached.Digital DisruptionUnderstanding how digital and technology will change _everything_Goal_744330d3-e032-4a1f-b9b4-e1984ca3d2759Founder Chris originally graduated with an Honours degree in Information Systems, and spent the first 10 years of his career in various software development roles in financial services. He still maintains an interest in several technology projects.
As a result, we have a very well developed and practical understanding of how technology can and will change almost every process in business today, and is able to bring this understanding to bear in proposing powerful business strategies that work.TechnologyUse technology to develop and execute business strategies more effectively and efficientlyGoal_2b136223-5f05-40ea-abbf-d30639493aeb10We don't just help our clients to profit from digital disruption. We also use digital technologies, most particularly StratNavApp.com (https://www.StratNavApp.com), in our own work to develop strategies more effectively and efficiently using:
* industry best practice
* open standards
* collaboration
See also StratNavApp's StratML record (https://www.stratnavapp.com/StratML/Part3/b2440d3f-3a8e-4c1f-bd03-f6750272031a/Styled).StrategyPlan_5509a8d6-32f5-440d-a1bd-48f33bc9a2522024-03-29Submitter_5509a8d6-32f5-440d-a1bd-48f33bc9a252ChrisFox07786021712