• Your work had a dramatically positive impact on our business. In addition to the strong strategic plan we developed, you infused a new mindset into our organization that has created the strategic discipline to make important trade-offs and unleashed a powerful energy of confidence. One year later, I can say you've truly made a difference to our business.


    - Don Pogorzelski, President, Genzyme Diagnostics

  • Thank you for facilitating an outstanding strategic thinking session with our top CEO customers within our industry. The CEO's believe that the program provided them with tools that will allow them to be more effective strategists.


    - Dean Gregory, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Fenwal

  • Rich Horwath helped us take all that is typically generalized by "strategy" and turn it into practical solutions for our management, and eventually, our entire company. We now have a repeatable process to capture key business insights, ensure strategic alignment, develop the company's leaders of tomorrow, and most importantly, profitably grow our business. Rich did an outstanding job working with our strategic team.


    - Tim O'Connor, Controller, Bangor Hydro Electric

  • Rich's strong knowledge in the area of strategic thinking and how it applies to business has been invaluable. He has provided the organization with the blueprint for developing and executing a successful business strategy. I've worked with Rich on three separate occasions and would definitely use him again.


    - Richard Locke, Vice President, Supply Chain, Alcan Packaging

  • Rich brought high energy and excellent methodology to the strategic planning process. His deep understanding of strategic thinking, combined with his strong facilitation skills, lead to lively discussion and allowed us to reach concensus on clear direction and prioritization for our coming year.


    - John Blackburn, CEO, COUNTRY Financial

  • Thank you very much for leading our strategic planning meeting--it was outstanding. The tools you shared are easy to use and at the same time get to the issues 'so what?' and 'what now?'. Thanks again for an excellent two days.


    - Bill McDonough, President & CEO, MMIC Group

  • Rich is not only an extremely competent thought leader regarding business strategy, but is also an amazing facilitator and presenter. His ability to create a space in which critical insights are both encouraged and required and his sincere desire to see that the teams with whom he engages are successful is readily apparent.


    - David Hammond, President, Wonderlic


The Strategy Quiz

How strategic is your business? Take this quiz to find out.

The Strategy Process

Use the world-renowned Deep Dive Strategy Development process to help your team set their strategic direction.

Case Study

See how a business used the Deep Dive Strategy Development process to increase their profitability and productivity

Strategy Vault

Support your managers' skill development and their business success with the online strategy resource center.


Develop the skills of strategic planning to help your business succeed!

The #1 cause of bankruptcy is bad strategy. If you and your team don't have a strong, written strategic plan today, you may not have a business tomorrow.
Rich Horwath can:
  • Lead your team through a simple, five-step strategy development process.
  • Develop a practical and profit-generating strategic plan that actually drives daily activities.
  • Help you move your business from a "me-too" commodity to competitive advantage.

Strategic Planning & Leadership Training

A thoughtfully crafted and professionally facilitated strategic planning process can help you re-energize the business and create a strategic mindset throughout the organization. Business planning also provides the following benefits:
  1. Creates a shared understanding of the business. By having a methodical and structured discussion around the four key areas of the business: market, customers, competitors and company, you can ensure that people in different functional areas and at different levels are all working in the same strategic direction.
  2. Generates innovation. True strategic thinking requires you to challenge assumptions about the business. Strategic Planning Seminars that challenge even the most basic assumptions about the business generate new insights. These new insights lead to new value for customers - the heart of innovation.
  3. Creates prepared minds. Great strategy workshops serve the dual purpose of developing strategy and at the same time providing a forum for business planning training. A study by the Institute of Directors showed that 90% of executives at the director and VP level have had no training to become competent strategists. Strategic planning training, when weaved into the business planning process, can develop managers' strategic thinking skills in a practical and interactive way.
The results you can expect from a successful strategic planning process:
  1. Greater effectiveness - doing the right things.
  2. Greater efficiency - doing things right.
  3. Greater innovation - doing new things.



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