Getting to the heart of a problem is key to transforming business performance. We apply proven business analysis techniques to get under the skin of business information to gain critical insights, understand complex problems, develop intelligent change plans to deliver rapid results. Our flexible approach can identify quick wins in the short term, while longer term strategic changes come into effect.

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster” Sun Tzu
In-depth research is the critical groundwork to create informed and underpinned plans. Our market opportunity assessments are focussed on gathering intelligence, insights and ideas to support strategic business planning and the creation of market competitive value propositions. Looking further out, our technology research projects support long-term planning, innovation and pathfinder initiatives.

“What gets measured gets managed” Peter Drucker
Effective performance needs to be set into context. Benchmarking can provide a powerful reality-check and clarity as to “what good looks like”. This informs business plans is a start point on the road to delivering focused change to improve competitiveness. Long term, the right set of performance measures supports the creation of smart performance dashboards to monitor progress against delivery of the business plan and ensure focus and performance are maintained.

Every business is presented with unique challenges and opportunities. For some, the time will be right to take a fundamental review of their strategy and market position, current and desired. For others, the focus may be on a specific area of the business which typically will require one of 3 things; increased sales, reduced cost or innovation. Here our Think-Tank capability will enable options to be explored, support generation of new ideas and create informed strategies for growth and transformation. Often as a precursor to such an initiative, Mercury Stone will be engaged to undertake market research to stimulate and inform discussions. In every case we bring a fresh perspective and support and facilitate individuals and teams to identify new beneficial ways forward.

We believe robust business plans are built on firm foundations; sound market intelligence, an assessment of business capabilities, a clear business model and a strategic route-map for focused development. But, truly great business plans are the ones that go the extra mile, presenting a vision for the future that energises staff, is compelling to customers and gains the support of investors and stakeholders. Our proven process for business plan development succeeds because; it is systematic, we work hand in hand with key members of the lead team and finally when the plan is almost complete, we take great care to crystalise key messages to enable effective presentation which is often key to gaining buy-in and board support.

Great technical solutions need to be translated into compelling value propositions that clearly present the competitive advantage of a service or product. While many think value propositions are purely to do with sales and marketing, our approach reaches out further to encompass the operational and manufacturing capabilities as well as overall business model required to deliver the service effectively and profitably. The best proposition development programmes sit within the business plan, are informed by market research and are aligned with business improvement programmes to ensure the proposition promise can be delivered. This is the very best start point for any strategic selling programme.

Our programmes transform operational performance to improve competitiveness and ensure that changes are fully aligned to delivery of the business plan. The result: more effective use of existing assets and the identification and introduction of critical new capabilities.

Effective marketing programmes prepare the ground for sales success. This is particularly important in complex and often technical markets where it is all too easy to see great propositions get lost in translation. We ensure that internal experts and external marketing resources work as one to deliver strategic marketing programmes. The outcome is for customers to recognise the advantages your business brings and to be positioned as the preferred choice ahead of any formal sales engagement.

Complex strategic selling often takes place over long timescales, engages many parties and has to comply with exacting procurement protocols.
Success requires the application of a systematic approach to bid management to ensure a co-ordinated, high quality response; but winning is also about ensuring that the special differentiating qualities of your bid shine bright. So yes we work hard on the detail, but the final focus is making sure the logic of the bid is expertly presented as a compelling argument.