Welcome to the 2019 review edition of the PNR Quarterly! We hope that you had a fantastic holiday break. Health and happiness in 2020!
For this edition, we want to take a step back and reflect on the past year. We’ve been expanding on the concept of Strategy in Action over the past year.
Our mission is to help companies take action, move faster and adapt to their market. This means moving away from the belief that companies are defined by plans, we prefer to focus on people. We believe the success of strategy lies in people’s ability to put their plan into concrete actions.
This concept is born out of our Agile planning methodology. It has grown to be much more than a simple adaptation of Agile principles applied to strategy.
We have been developing the Strategy in Action depicted below:
Vectors represent the team’s (board, shareholders, management, employees) potential to move the organization forward; this is influenced by the direction and the magnitude of their actions.
Direction measures:
- Clarity of vision: Clear view of where the organization is going, understanding how to get there and clear expectations.
- Team alignment: The relationship between formal strategic planning and performance
Magnitude measures:
- Management capabilities: Portfolio management and corporate finance, regulatory management, M&A, JVs and partnering, Business unit strategy and value creation, Talent management and culture
- Operating capabilities: Sourcing, Supply chain and operations, Product development and innovation, Go to market, Customer experience
- Proprietary assets: Tangible assets, People and talent, Technology, IP and data, Value Proposition and Brand, Customer relationships.
Why does this matter?
Our research has discovered that an organization has 1.9 times increased likelihood of having above-median financial performance when the leadership team is working together toward a common vision. In addition, coherent companies grow 48% faster than the industry average and are twice as likely to report above average profits.
In Q4, we held 5 strategic offsites with our customers and started implementing improvements to our planning methodology. We will continue expanding on this concept and refining our approach. Successes and failures will be shared!
Team Updates!
George Vatistas joined PNR as Engagement Manager. George joins us from Fidelity Investments where he spent the previous two years. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Marketing. George is a high energy individual and thrives on new challenges.
Antoine Buteau, PNR’s first employee, was promoted to Senior Engagement Manager. Antoine has led more than 20 mandates in High Technology, Media, Manufacturing, CPG and Retail. He has developed an obsession with making sense of the intersection between strategy definition and execution. He’s currently doing a deep dive on growth. He also really likes jazz, tacos and hockey.
Fun stuff
Our most downloaded podcasts from the past quarter:
Building a Fintech empire with Francois Lafortune, Founder and CEO @ Diagram
Francois Lafortune is an entrepreneur and investor with fifteen years experience in building businesses in the financial technology sector. He is the co-founder and CEO of Diagram Ventures, a $85m venture builder that co-founds technology companies pursuing transformative innovation in the financial, insurance and healthcare sectors. Francois is also a Partner of Portag3 Ventures, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Hydro-Québec, he sits on Minister of Finance Bill Morneau’s advisory committee on Open Banking; and he is a member of the AMF’s Technological Innovation advisory committee.
Our favorite articles:
Algorithmic friendship with Brie Code, CEO & Creative Director @ Tru Luv
Brie Code is the CEO and creative director of TRU LUV, a Toronto-based studio that makes AI companions. Their companions are built on a framework of deepening friendship, not increasing challenge or complexity, to help people relax and grow. They think they are a key part of the future of interactivity. TRU LUV’s first companion, #SelfCare, is one of Apple’s Best of 2018 Trends of the Year selections.
Ecosystem building with Sylvain Carle, Partner @ Real Ventures
Sylvain Carle has spent the last two decades living and breathing emerging technologies. Though he didn’t study computer science, Sylvain has been tinkering with computers for years, and spent most of his career as a startup entrepreneur at the confluence of media, technology and networks. A self-proclaimed nerd, socialist and pragmatist, Sylvain believes in technology as a means to change the world, and loves investing in ideas and people to transform industries. Before joining Real Ventures in 2014, Sylvain was CTO and co-founder at Messagia, Interstructure, Praized and Needium, and also worked as Senior Developer Advocate at Twitter in San Francisco. As a Real Ventures pre-seed partner, Sylvain plays a key role in nurturing the local tech ecosystem, and also works closely with their portfolio companies.
Our favorite articles:
What do executives do, anyway? Apenwarr (reading time: 11 minutes)
The job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions. This is one of the best posts on strategy, values and decision-making we’ve read. Andy Grove of Intel fame laid out some basic principles in his opus, High Output Management. These core tenets are remarkably applicable today. The author of this post also does a good job of explaining the relevance for small businesses as well.
Killing Strategy: The Disruption Of Management Consulting CB Insights (reading time: 30 minutes)
This special report by CB Insights focuses on how management consulting can potentially be disrupted. It examines several interesting trends and how the huge industry of consulting might be affected. In the end, no industry is safe and constant adaptation is necessary.
Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon Joel on Software (reading time: 14 minutes)
This is an amazing article on company building. The author argues that there are essentially two types of companies; going slow and methodical (Ben & Jerry’s) or going big and fast (like Amazon). Each path will require radically different choices in terms of culture, capital and mindset.
Agile Strategy Meetup
We held our first ever meetup at our office in collaboration with the Business Agility Institute. Over 70 people came to hear a talk on aligning a leadership team based on Agile Strategy.
If you have any suggestions or comments, we would love to hear from you! insights@thepnr.com
Have a great Q1!
The PNR Team
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