I am regularly surprised at how often companies of all shapes and sizes seem to confuse strategy with planning or goal-setting. A robust and effective strategy can be built in the space of a workshop or two and then serve as the foundation on which future decision-making is based at all levels within the organisation. In my experience company leaders almost always possess the insight required to formulate good strategy. Where they tend to struggle is with frameworks, workshop structure and facilitation and that's exactly where I can help.

Innovation is hard and kiwi companies struggle with it. There are a myriad of underlying reasons but two of the most common are a lack of understanding of the broader principles of innovation and broken or non-existent product development systems and structures. Together they're a challenging combination. After spending 5 years with Callaghan Innovation and also working with a large number of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies (whose success tends to hinge on their ability to innovate and get new products and features to market quickly and efficiently) I've had a close-up view of what works and what doesn't and can help your organisation do a lot more of the former and avoid the latter. And not just for SaaS companies.

When it comes to things like strategy and innovation I am a firm believer in keeping it all in-house (i.e. no consultants) and the reason is simple. Nobody understands your company, its people and customers like you do. Nobody. The same applies to things like business planning and product development but the business leaders involved almost always find it difficult to fully participate in the process whilst simultaneously running it. That's why I recommend that they engage somebody to do that part for them. Me !