Pre-study and research
Pre-study and strategic research
Definitely Mabe AB (org. nr 556836-0688), Sweden. Contact: mathias@d-ma.be
A bounded piece of work that answers one question: what is actually in the way, and what are the real options? Usually the cheapest thing an organisation can buy before committing to something expensive.
Scope
What it covers
Stakeholder analysis
Who decides, who is affected, who can stop it, and where those three disagree. Most stalled programmes are explained here.
Customer and market research
What the client's customers are actually trying to do, as distinct from what the organisation believes they want.
Landscape studies
The technical, competitive and regulatory terrain — what is possible, what is permitted, and what others have already learned the hard way.
Those three together are what make the crux visible. Individually each produces a report; together they produce a decision.
Outcome
What you get
A named crux, solution approaches with their trade-offs stated plainly, and a recommendation — including a recommendation not to proceed where that is the honest answer. Enough to fund the next step, or to stop with confidence.
It also produces the option, not the obligation, of continuing into driving the implementation.
Track record
What this has looked like
Katla Aero · 2023consulting
Project manager, business design. Four months developing a go-to-market strategy and a Product-as-a-Service business model for a manufacturer of electric aviation drones. The work contributed to defining the company's strategic direction and its alternative development paths.
Mastercard · 2022–2023consulting
Portfolio Lead, Sustainability Innovation Lab. Established the project portfolio, processes and ways of working for environmental sustainability innovation globally — building the structure from nothing, and engaging customers, partners and academia around it.
SEB · 2018–2022
Customer Insight Lead, Large Corporates & Institutions. Developed analysis and benchmarking processes for large corporate and institutional customers, and integrated those insights with CRM. The outcome was consensus on customer needs and strategically important questions, and an organisation able to evaluate new cloud and data platform technologies against real business situations.
SEB · 2014–2018
CIO Strategy Team Manager. Led a team of analysts covering IT portfolio planning, business cases, feasibility studies and scenario planning. Worked with strategic suppliers and supported the adoption of agile methods. Concurrently Acting CTO, Markets (2016–2017), with IT management and business planning for the Markets business area. The results were a clearer shared view of the division's entire IT portfolio, faster organisational learning about working with customers in innovation processes, and risk reduced through analysis done before commitment rather than after.
Marked consulting where the engagement was consulting work. The rest were held as an employee.
A pre-study is worth buying precisely when the expensive decision has not been made yet. Once a direction has been committed and a team hired, the research tends to become a search for justification — which is a different and much less useful exercise.