SRTC Presentation to Boardroom Metrics

BUSINESS ALLIANCES
Because none of us are as bad ass as all of us!
© Strategic Red Team Consulting 1
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Briefing to
14 February 2013

2
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Introduction:

• We are a full-service, strategic-level business consultancy
predominantly teamed by professionals from the most
seasoned and senior ranks of the Profession of Arms who
have since moved on to the commercial sector.

• OUR MISSION is to increase our client’s COMPETITIVENESS by
amplifying their STRATEGIC RELEVANCE, their OPERATIONAL
RESPONSIVENESS and their TACTICAL DECISIVENESS on their
CORPORATE BATTLEFIELD.

• We all are proven strategic planning experts in adversarial and hostile environments and we believe
that the business world is just another manifestation of an adversarial environment..... or, at least a
very competitive one.

• We aim to bring those same proven military planning methodologies into the private sector by
providing you an impressive arsenal of expertise, unique products and seasoned practitioners who
have honed their art over the last three decades and more.

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Our Character:
• We are all “long-in-the-tooth” veterans of many Military,
Commercial, Government and/or Academic campaigns.

• We have led groups from small strategic planning teams of
20, to major military task forces and private sector
companies numbering in the thousands.

• We have managed both commercial portfolios and governmental programmes in complex adaptive
environments ranging from millions to billions of dollars.

• We believe that business is an adversarial environment and that business strategies and planning
methodologies must be aggressively attuned to that environment.

• We are all about our client’s competitiveness and we come from a competitive environment where
there was no prize for second place.

• We believe that consultants should deliver self help through disciplined capacity building, proven
processes and unique products – not merely a list of recommendations based on the fashionable
managerial theories of the day.

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Its not about the years…. Its about the mileage.

Reader’s Digest Version: We have worked across the Globe in a diverse spectrum of private sector, public
sector, NGO, IGO and military capacities, for CEO, Head of State, Head of Mission clients, in a wide range of
business sectors including: security, intelligence, defence, management, manufacturing, trade, agriculture,
media, reconstruction, nation building, justice, education, water & power, energy, transportation, financial,
environmental, rule of law, reconstruction, ……
In short: Strategy is Strategy…. regardless of context.

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In 2011, I was faced with a simple problem…..

How do I go from this….

…..to this?

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Considerations
What qualities, characteristics, disciplines, methodologies, products and
institutional experiences from the Profession of Arms have the most applicability in
the Private Sector?

….of these, which ones fill unique
capability gaps in the Private Sector?

….. and if you are entering an extant
and mature consulting market, don’t hit
them where they are, hit them where
they ain’t.

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Design principles
If these principles are good enough in war, they are certainly good enough to guide
one in business…….
• Selection and Maintenance of
the Aim
• Maintenance of Morale
• Offensive Action
• Security
• Surprise
• Concentration of Force
• Economy of Effort
• Flexibility
• Cooperation
• Sustainability

….. and most importantly, always try to
lend a little dignity to what would
otherwise be a vulgar brawl!

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The result – 3 distinct business approaches:
Understand your Enable knowledge based Disciplined Testing,
strategic competitive decision making through Refinement, Rehearsal &
environment! disciplined planning Execution

UNIQUE PRODUCT UNIQUE APPROACH UNIQUE PRODUCT
INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION DISCIPLINED STRATEGIC CORPORATE
OF YOUR CORPORATE PLANNING SERVICES WARGAMING
BATTLEFIELD AND CUSTOMIZED
PRODUCTS RED TEAMING
COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING
SURVEY

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….and in business, as in battle, the quality of your troops is your single
best credential.

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….also, in business as in battle, wisdom and experience beats
youth and exuberance any day of the week!

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Understanding the strategic environment

SURVEY

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Intelligence Preparation of the Corporate Battlefield (IPCB)
• THIS IS A STRATEGIC LEVEL PRODUCT FOR C-
SUITE DECISION MAKERS (CEO, CFO, COO,
CTO, etc) TO INITIATE AND FOCUS THEIR
STRATEGIC PLANNING / MANAGEMENT
PROCESSES.

• The real question strategic competitive
targeting is not so much about what your
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats are.

• Rather, the truly strategic issue is, “what are
your elements of corporate power and
influence?”

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• We establish your Strengths and Weaknesses
in how you SHAPE, UNIFY and OPERATE in a
series of strategic domains (LEAD, SENSE, ACT,
SHIELD, SUSTAIN & GENERATE) that represent
the comprehensive and strategically relevant
aspects of your Corporate Battlefield.

• These issues only become Opportunities or
Threats based on the comparative nature of
your Corporate Battlefield, your adversarial
environment and your competition.

• You also get one new product from this
exercise – your Corporate Critical Intelligence
Requirements, or CCIRs.

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• The result is a unique COMPREHENSIVE
strategic evaluation of the COMPARATIVE
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats of your enterprise and your
competition – your elements of corporate
power and influence.

• You are now armed with an impressive
arsenal of strategic information to enable
knowledge based decision making in the
formulation of your vision, mission analysis,
objectives, critical intelligence
requirements, et al.

• Consider it a “SWOT” exercise on steroids.

SWOT = Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

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Competitive Benchmarking Survey (CBS)
• The Competitive Benchmarking Survey (CBS)
is a more simplified in terms of construct in
order to facilitate answers by a wider
audience beyond C-Suite. All leaders and
managers in your enterprise, regardless of
stripe or position, should be able to answer
the questions in each of the attributes.

• The CBS is an excellent “mechanism of voice”
for your enterprise and “exercise of
discovery” for your leadership by giving you
instantaneous feedback on the collective
corporate opinion of your competitive
potential and vulnerabilities.

• The large survey sample size also gives you significant potential in categorizing the
responses to facilitate further strategic planning, or to further refine your intelligence
gathering requirements.

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Competitive Benchmarking Survey (CBS)

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Understanding your strategic competitive environment!
Intelligence Preparation of the Competitive
Corporate Battlefield Benchmarking Survey
(IPCB) (CBS)

• Both the IPCB and the CBS give you specific insights into your strategic elements of corporate power
and influence. By themselves, each can be a standalone product that can seriously increase the
effectiveness of your strategic and operational planning processes. Used together, they become an
incredibly advantageous planning support tool.

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…and we all know that understanding your environment is critical
to success.

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Disciplined Strategic Planning Services

SURVEY
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….because everybody knows the military is great at strategy

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Strategic Planning Support
• Our aim is to enable your knowledge based decision making
through the provision of focused strategic analysis and
disciplined planning.

• We concentrate on reinforcement, not re-invention.

• We provide a full suite of customized Strategic Planning Support
and client-oriented capacity building from Mission Analysis
through to Execution and After Action Review.

• We don’t advocate anything new here; Operational Art; Mission Analysis; Campaign Design;
Campaign Planning; Operational Planning Processes; Command-centric Leadership; et al.

• Why are we rather “old school” about this? Simple – it works and it has stood the test of both
time and battle. They are also proven to be integrated, comprehensive, adaptive, networked
and their ultimate purpose is to ensure knowledge-based decision making.

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Strategic Level Decision Support
• With emphasis on:

• Maintaining Corporate Strategic Watch and Strategic
Agility

• Determining Your Strategic Elements of Corporate
Power and Influence

• Determining Your Corporate Critical Intelligence Requirements

• Strategic Initiation & Orientating Your Corporate Team

• Strategic Mission Analysis, Corporate Centres of Gravity & Critical Factors.

• Strategic Plan Development, Objectives, Decisive Points, Lines of Operation & Courses of
Action / Strategic Options

• Designing Contingencies, Branch Plans and Sequels

• Strategic Execution, Management & Refinement
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Strategic Planning Support
• STRATEGIC & OPERATIONAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING
• Strategic Design: with emphasis on:
• Determining Strategic End State and Vision
• Determining Strategic Objectives
• Determining Strategic Effects
• Establishing Mission and Strategic Centres of Gravity
• Determining Strategically Critical Intelligence Requirements
• Determining Strategic Organizational Learning Requirements
• Establishing Decisive Points
• Establishing Strategic Lines of Operation
• Establishing Transitional Conditions for Change
• Formulating Strategic Sequencing Options
• Formulating Direct and Indirect Approaches
• Establishing Conditions for Culmination
• Establishing Strategic Tempo
• Refining your requirements to enable Knowledge-Based Decision Making during execution.
• Campaign Execution and Conduct
• Post Campaign Strategic Assessment

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Disciplined Testing, Refinement, Rehearsal & Execution
• If you are in an adversarial and competitive business
environment, how do you evaluate the various courses of action
open to you?

• How do you know whether your strategy is truly comprehensive,
integrated, adaptive and networked?

• How do you test your plans before you execute them?

• Who plays the role of your adversary, your competition, or your
clients?

• How is your plan put under stress in order to reduce risk in
execution?

• How is the feedback presented to your executive leadership?

• What separates a great plan from a self-fulfilling prophecy?

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Disciplined Testing, Refinement, Rehearsal & Execution
• At SRTC, we believe that intelligence, strategy,
planning, and execution, are HUMAN
ACTIVITIES and the true test of those things
can only be accomplished with human beings
in the loop. Ideally, the players should be the
very people that will have to make critical
decisions in the execution of your plan.

• How did we do it in the military?

• Simply, we wargamed every course of action
before committing to battle and we have
customized this discipline for the commercial
sector with our entry-level Corporate
Wargaming Exercise and our more
advanced Strategic Red Teaming Exercise.

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Corporate Wargaming
• Our Corporate Wargames are disciplined, real-time, action-
reaction, role-playing workshops that pit your key real-life
decision makers and managers (Blue Team) against real-time
competitive adversaries (Red Team).

• This methodology is also an outstanding risk mitigation exercise,
a fantastic confidence builder, an exercise of discovery for
leadership, a mechanism of voice for your teams, and an
instrument of real-time organizational learning for all, thereby
improving your ability to compete and win in the marketplace.

• Corporate Wargaming Exercises are extremely flexible in terms of time, effort and participation.
These can be simple one day workshops targeted towards examining a particular course of
action, staff construct, or business scenario - to a multi-day event that covers a complete plan
or spectrum of events from your competitive business enterprise. You can have a series of one
day events (one per competitor) or a multi-day exercise that pits you against your entire
competitive environment.

• In short, we design each Corporate Wargaming Exercise to be uniquely scaled and customized
to your strategic decision support needs.

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Corporate Wargaming (Blue Team)
• The BLUE TEAM represents the client. Blue teamers are
selected by the client based on the nature of the problem
space, the scenario being exercised, and nature of the
decisions to be validated. Ideally, we would advise that
your Blue Team is populated by the real people, leaders
and managers that will be responsible and accountable for
the execution of your actual plan.

• The size of your BLUE TEAM is up to you. However, we
would advise that the members of your Blue Team are
confined to the actual decision makers needed to validate
the execution of your strategy or plan.

• This is not meant to be a test exercise to put particular individuals under the gun. Rather, it is to
promote realism and to ensure your real time leaders and managers are afforded that “exercise
of discovery” and “mechanism of voice” during the after-action review.

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Corporate Wargaming (Red Team)
• The RED TEAM represents your adversaries, your
competition, your commercial environment – anything that
you have determined as a critical vulnerability, opportunity
or a possible impact on your plan.

• As a general rule, but not a hard fast one, Red Teamers
should match Blue Teamers on a one for one basis. In
essence, for every Blue Team decision maker, there is a Red
Teamer providing a degree of realistic “competitive action”.

• To keep the costs down, for the Corporate Wargaming option we would recommend that the
majority of the Red Team is drawn from the ranks of your own company and supplemented by a
few SRTC Red Team mentors to provide guidance and to ensure that the interaction is realistic and
learning based.

• Drawing from your own company’s expertise has the advantages of keeping costs down by using
your own pool of expertise; utilizing your existing corporate “esprit de corps” and reducing the
perception of being tested by outsiders.

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Corporate Wargaming (White Team)
• The WHITE TEAM Leader is the workshop facilitator and the
team (2-3 people) is predominantly comprised of STRC
members and the Client Sponsor for the exercise.

• The White Team designs and customizes the wargame to the
client’s needs, advises in determining the participants, designs
the master events list and wargame products, records results
and assists the client in the after-action review.

• Most importantly, the White Team are the enforcers who ensure that interaction in the wargame is
realistic and that the feedback is honest.

• The White Team also ensures that nobody cheats and it maintains discipline with draconian glee
(Red Teams are notorious cheaters.... and all White Teamers are experienced ex-Red Team Leaders
– so they know all the tricks).

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STRATEGIC RED TEAM EXERCISES
• Our capstone product is the STRATEGIC RED TEAM
EXERCISE and it shares similar objectives with our Corporate
Wargaming Exercise.

• Both are disciplined, real-time, action-reaction, role-playing
workshops that pit your real-life Blue Team decision-makers
managers against real-time Red Team adversaries.

• Both are outstanding risk mitigation exercises,
fantastic confidence builders, exercises of discovery for
leadership, mechanisms of voice for your teams, and
instruments of real-time organizational learning for all.

• The STRATEGIC RED TEAM EXERCISE is also executed in the
exact same way as our Corporate Wargaming Exercise , with
one small exception......... NONE OF THE RED TEAM PLAYERS
ARE DRAWN FROM THE CLIENT.

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STRATEGIC RED TEAM EXERCISES
• In this exercise, each Red Teamer is a company outsider
that has no personal stake or interest in your company.

• They are a group of subject matter experts customized to
your company’s wargaming needs and their mission is to
engage your company’s plans with full COMPETITIVE
ADVERSARIAL INTENT.

• Red Teamers are not coloured by any internal assumptions about your company, or any prejudices /
stereotypes your team may harbour about your real-life competitors. Using only realistic
information, analyses and intelligence about your competition, their primary role is to fully defeat
your plan through coordinated action designed to SUPPRESS YOUR STRENGTHS and NEUTRALIZE
YOUR OPPORTUNITIES.

• In essence, this is a test of your plan against your worst case competitor or competitive
scenario. As an investment by your company, it is an outstanding risk mitigation exercise, dress
rehearsal and confidence builder all rolled into one activity.

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