Strategy output! Reminds me of the time I met the Head of Strategy for a major retail bank. I explained how I was building his company statistical models that would predict propensity to buy various financial services products amongst existing customers. The uplift in sales response was about 100%, so further budget had been signed off to build newer models to support the banks strategy. I wondered if he could enlighten me as to what that was.“Weeelll,” he said, “the strategy is to leverage existing customer relationships to the point where customers take 3.5 products per person in place of the current 1.2. We’d also like to compete with First Direct (who had just launched) in customer service”.There was a pause.“But”, he continued, “if we see the other banks start to offer poor products in, for instance, current accounts, then we might just decide to go ganbusters on current accounts. It’s a flexible strategy”.With Heads of Strategy like that, is it any wonder a bunch of monkeys with a Michael Porter book can sell a bunch of powerpoint and call it boutique consulting.
