SERVICE
Strategy & Growth
Where to compete, how to win there, and what to stop doing to pay for it.
Average revenue growth over plan, three years on
Typical time from first meeting to board-ready strategy
Of strategy clients ask us back to help deliver it
OVERVIEW
Corporate and business-unit strategy, portfolio choices, pricing and market entry for leadership teams that need a plan they can fund and defend to the board.
Strategy work fails in one of two ways. Either it describes an ambition without saying what the company will stop doing to fund it, or it is so hedged that nobody can tell what changed. We aim for neither. A Vertex strategy names the markets you will compete in, the ones you will leave, and the few investments that matter most, with the economics shown on one page.
Our teams are small and senior. A partner leads every engagement and stays in the room for it. We work from primary evidence: customer interviews, win-loss data, competitor cost structures and the margin by product and channel that most companies have never assembled in one place. That evidence usually settles arguments that have run inside the leadership team for years.
We judge the work by what happens after the board meeting. Clients who ask us to stay help us turn the strategy into a funded portfolio of initiatives with owners, milestones and a monthly review, because a plan that is not on the calendar is not a plan.
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER
What clients bring to this practice
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WHAT WE DO
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Corporate and portfolio strategy
We assess every business on its returns, its market position and its fit with the rest of the group, then set out what to fund, fix or exit.
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Business-unit strategy
A clear statement of where a unit competes and how it wins, built on customer and competitor evidence rather than internal consensus.
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Pricing and commercial excellence
Price architecture, discount governance and sales coverage, usually worth two to four points of margin within a year.
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Market entry and adjacencies
Sizing, entry-mode choice and a staged plan with kill criteria, so a new market gets a fair test without becoming a sunk cost.
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Growth diagnostics
A six-week review that separates market growth from share gain and price from volume, so leadership knows where growth actually came from.
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Strategy into execution
Translating the strategy into a short list of funded initiatives, owners and quarterly milestones that the executive team reviews monthly.
OUR WORK
All case studies
INDUSTRIES
Where this practice works most often
How long does a strategy engagement take?
Most run ten to fourteen weeks. A focused question, such as a single market entry decision, can be answered in six.
Do you bring a house view on our industry?
We bring evidence and a point of view, but the recommendation is built from your customers, your economics and your competitors, not from a template.
Who from our side needs to be involved?
The chief executive and the leadership team for steering, plus a small core team of three to five people who work alongside ours day to day.
Do you stay for implementation?
If you want us to. Many clients keep a small team for the first two or three quarters to set up the cadence, then run it themselves.
Webinar: scenario planning for the 2027 board calendar
scenario-planning-2027-webinar
Event
Elena Marsh and Priya Raman
A one-hour online briefing for directors and executives on building scenarios, triggers and prepared moves into the board's regular cycle.
Scenario planning that boards will actually use
scenario-planning-for-boards
Article
Elena Marsh and Thomas Reid
Most board scenario exercises produce a thick report and no decisions. A lighter approach, tied to triggers and pre-agreed moves, makes them useful.
Making cost savings last: a breakfast roundtable for CFOs
making-cost-savings-last-roundtable
Event
David Okafor and Hannah Cole
A closed-door breakfast in London for finance leaders planning their next cost program, built on the findings of The CFO Cost Agenda 2026.
Operations AI Benchmark 2026: from pilots to the P&L
operations-ai-benchmark-2026
Report
Marcus Lindqvist and Priya Raman
How 286 operations leaders are using AI in maintenance, planning and quality, how much of it reaches production, and what the companies seeing returns do differently.
Zero-based organization design, done properly
zero-based-organization-design
Article
Hannah Cole
Designing an organization from a blank page sounds radical. Done well, it is the most practical way to remove layers and duplication without starting a political war.
The first 100 days after a merger
first-100-days-after-a-merger
Article
Lukas Brenner and Amara Nwosu
The first hundred days after closing set the pace for everything that follows. What to settle before day one, what to do quickly, and what to leave alone.
The CFO Cost Agenda 2026: why savings fade and what keeps them
cfo-cost-agenda-2026
Report
Thomas Reid and David Okafor
A survey of 412 chief financial officers on cost programs, how much of the savings survive, and the practices that separate durable results from temporary ones.
Making AI pay back in operations, not in pilots
making-ai-pay-back-in-operations
Article
Marcus Lindqvist and Kenji Watanabe
Most operations AI never leaves the pilot stage. The few use cases that pay back share a set of traits that have little to do with the model itself.
Pricing power after the inflation years
pricing-power-after-inflation
Article
Elena Marsh and Priya Raman
Companies raised prices faster than costs between 2021 and 2024. Customers remember. How to set prices now that the cover of general inflation is gone.
Why cost programs fail in year two
why-cost-programs-fail-in-year-two
Article
David Okafor and Thomas Reid
Most cost programs hit their first-year targets. The savings disappear in the second year, for reasons that are predictable and largely avoidable.