These structures are starting points for common case problems. Use them to learn how business issues can be decomposed, but adapt every structure to the client, objective, and available evidence.
Profitability
Profit: Revenue − Costs.
- Revenue: Price × Volume.
- Costs: Fixed Costs + Variable Costs.
- Segmentation: Product, customer, geography, channel, or business unit.
Growth
- Core business: Increase customers, frequency, volume, or price.
- New segments: Target additional customer groups.
- New products: Expand the offering.
- New channels: Reach customers differently.
- New geographies: Enter additional markets.
- Inorganic growth: Acquisitions, partnerships, or joint ventures.
Market Entry
- Market attractiveness: Size, growth, profitability, and trends.
- Customer: Needs, willingness to pay, and segments.
- Competition: Competitors, market shares, differentiation, and likely responses.
- Capabilities: Brand, technology, operations, channels, and talent.
- Economics: Investment, revenue potential, costs, and returns.
- Entry strategy: Build, buy, partner, or license.
- Risks: Commercial, operational, financial, and regulatory.
Pricing
- Customer value: Willingness to pay and perceived benefits.
- Competition: Alternative products and prevailing prices.
- Costs: Unit costs and required margins.
- Elasticity: Expected volume response to price changes.
- Segmentation: Whether different customers support different prices.
M&A and Commercial Due Diligence
- Market: Size, growth, structure, and attractiveness.
- Target company: Position, customers, capabilities, and performance.
- Economics: Revenue growth, margins, cash flow, and valuation.
- Synergies: Revenue and cost opportunities.
- Risks: Competitive, operational, integration, and market risks.
Operations
- Demand: Required output or service levels.
- Capacity: Available resources and utilization.
- Process: Steps, cycle times, handoffs, and bottlenecks.
- Productivity: Output per unit of labor, equipment, or other input.
- Quality: Defects, rework, yield, and service performance.
- Supply chain: Sourcing, inventory, logistics, and suppliers.
General Decision Structure
For unfamiliar cases, start from first principles:
- Should we do it? Evaluate attractiveness and strategic fit.
- Can we do it? Assess capabilities, resources, and constraints.
- Will it create value? Examine economics and expected returns.
- What could go wrong? Identify risks and mitigation actions.
- How should we proceed? Define implementation and next steps.
Final principle: A good framework is not the one you remember most clearly. It is the one that breaks the client’s specific problem into logical, relevant, and actionable questions.
