Read the summary and the most important questions on Week 5 Strategy Consulting MCM

• 1 Introduction

• There is a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to solution development, why is this the case?

  Because there are no facts, you are stepping in the unknown, about what will happen in the future, which is especially the case in strategy consulting.

• Based on the fact that there is a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to solution development, what is important for consultants to  do with the solution that they come up with? And what may this eventually influence?

  Consultants may have to assess the likelihood of the solution generating the predicted result, which may influence decision-making.

• What shift do we see in consultancy?

  No longer the focus lies on the report, but now on the implementation and results.

• 1.1 Scenarios

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• What advantage do scenarios give the customer and the consultants?

  • Combining different type of opportunities of futures. So the customer has the option to make his or her choice.

  • For consultants you can build different type of scenarios in order to test those scenarios yourself, because not all futures are equally impactful.

• 2 Mapping the future

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• What article is concerned with Mapping the future? Or scenario planning

  Schoemaker, 1995

• In terms of scenarios allowing you to Map the future, what are the 4 advantages that scenarios will give you, as opposed to other planning tools?

  1. Contrary to other planning methods, scenarios tie multiple futures together
     
  2. Is dynamic (chances of snowdrift in the mountains)
  3. Scenarios allow for change in multiple variables
  4. Includes both objective (presenting thousands of outcomes)  and subjective interpretations (seeks interesting patterns among data) of change

• What do scenarios, above all the other advantages, encourage customers to do, according to Shoemaker?

  Scenarios (scenario mapping) challenge the prevailing mindset.

• What can be difficult when you are advising a client and you have all the facts and figures in place? And why?

  To convince a customer purely based on these facts and figures, because they want the story behind it, what the facts and figures tell.

• Instead of just talking about the facts and the figures, you can convince your customer by talking about the path that you sketched out for your client. What do you show when you take your client by the hand and walk over that path?

  Scenario planning.

• How will scenarios help consultants in terms of the perception of their clients?

  Scenarios help clients to appreciate the impact of consultant's advice.