Strategic Red Team Consulting - Company Intro - Jan 2014

© Strategic Red Team Consulting All Rights Reserved

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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 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.

• 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.


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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

strategic competitive environment!

INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION OF YOUR CORPORATE

BATTLEFIELD

COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING SURVEY

Enable knowledge based decision making through

disciplined planning

DISCIPLINED STRATEGIC PLANNING SERVICES AND CUSTOMIZED

PRODUCTS

Disciplined Testing, Refinement, Rehearsal &

Execution

CORPORATE WARGAMING

RED TEAMING

UNIQUE PRODUCT UNIQUE PRODUCT UNIQUE APPROACH


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


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Understanding the strategic environment Understand your

strategic competitive environment!


BATTLEFIELD





PRODUCTS


Execution

CORPORATE WARGAMING

RED TEAMING



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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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Intelligence Preparation of the Corporate Battlefield (IPCB) • 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!

• 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.

Intelligence Preparation of the

Corporate Battlefield

(IPCB)

Competitive

Benchmarking Survey

(CBS)


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Disciplined Strategic Planning Services

Understand your strategic competitive

environment!


BATTLEFIELD





PRODUCTS


Execution

CORPORATE WARGAMING

RED TEAMING



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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 Strategic Planning Services


environment!


BATTLEFIELD





PRODUCTS


Execution

CORPORATE WARGAMING

RED TEAMING



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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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In Summary – these are our centres of gravity.


environment!


BATTLEFIELD





PRODUCTS


Execution

CORPORATE WARGAMING

RED TEAMING



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Questions & Discussion

Business

Strategic Red Team Consulting - Company Intro - Jan 2014