Strategy Consulting

Holistic Business Consulting

At Zero Strategist we take a holistic approach to all of our services and business consulting because we believe that this is the best way to deliver value to our clients. We understand that though the whole is greater then it’s parts that each part of your organization relates to and ultimately affects the whole. By choosing to take a holistic business consulting approach other opportunities to improve the overall operation of the organization will be revealed and present the potential to outpace peers and competitors. If you are not sure where to start, but know that you need trusted, knowledgable and skilled consultants to help you take your business to the next level contact us to schedule a free initial consultation.

Digital Strategy

Social Media. Web 2.0. Podcasts. Blogs. Communities. Enterprise 2.0. Viral Content. Wikis. Crowd sourcing. RSS. Social Networks. Engagement. Virtual Worlds. The digital ecosystem of New Media has grown up and expanded but is no longer new (coined in 2004). The social web is maturing and the semantic web is imminent. The noisy incessant chatter of digital marketers drones on filling the new medium with a deluge of noise. Awareness of the social media is increasing globally with no end in sight. The differentiating factor between you and your competitors is your digital strategy. Get strategic. Integrate your organizational strategies. Connect your web presences with purpose to unite your organization, leaders, constituents, fans to align them to achieve a common vision. Create an digital identity that directly reflects your organization and mission. Engage with meaning. Experiment with technology, measure and learn. Translate your virtual actions into the real world to engagement and achieve systematic goals in support of your mission.

Ideation & Innovation

Ideas are the wellspring that feed organizations, causes and innovation. Ideas lead to new services, products and markets. The social web has spurned the rise of Idea Management Systems (IMSs) like IdeaScale, Kindling, spigit and BrightIdea. And open source technology communities are currently building IMS functionalities to support idea management integration into popular CMSs such as WordPress and Drupal (via themes, plugins and modules). These idea systems are unlocking the potential of human capital, revealing the wealth of ideas that already exist inside and outside (crowdsourcing) of the organizations, allowing them to become actualized. Ideas spawn more than just passion though, they also present management, logistical, community and resource challenges. With so many ideas being revealed determining which ones are relevant, timely and align to the strategic direction of the organization is absolutely key to making them reality. So you have got great people with innovative ideas but which ones should be selected to be incubated? How many? Bring in Zero Strategist for ideation, strategy, innovation, startup, mind mapping sessions or to help design your idea management system.

Startup Consulting

When spinning up a new startup company you need more then just a great idea, venture capital and the right new technology to succeed, you need cross functional people who are intense focused visionaries. There will be a mountain of work, more then the team has the time, ability or capacity to do. We can help refine your idea before you launch it, figure out what makes business sense, how to make it social, understand the landscape of what has already been done and what direction to go in order to make it happen. Anyone can think up an amazing idea, but few ever figure out how to do it and have the perseverance to see it through to fruition. We help increase the capacity of your organization by helping you to vette new talent and cultivate what you already have. Zero Strategist’s creative team brings a fresh outside perspective to identify and solve problems before they become barriers to the startups success.

Change Management

The number, magnitude and velocity of changes organizations are facing has increased dramatically over the past decade. The prevalence of digital media has change the face of many industries including music, banking, media, and cinema to name just a few. Business is not the same as it was 5 or 10 years ago. It has changed massively and rapidly. Giants have fallen and a new era of the agile enterprise has dawned opening doors for new distribution models and mediums. How people produce and consume has changed forever. The economic climate and global market changes are putting huge pressures on most industries to change continuously. Those organizations that do not continue to adapt to these changes overtime are becoming irrelevant or out paced by more dynamic competitors. It is not a matter of if you are going to change, but how best to change.  Zero Strategist is Prosci Certified in Change Management and specializes in change engagement targeted for Social Media, Small Businesses, Enterprise 2.0, and Government 2.0.

Process Engineering

What makes every organization unique is the individuals who compose it and the way that they deliberately choose to conduct business. These processes determine the level of efficiency and the capacity an organization has to accomplish the projects, tasks and produce amazing things over time. Most people think that methods like Lean Six Sigma are just used to produce efficiency, but process engineering is as much about improving the quality of what is produced. Organizations that operate only in the short run get overtaken by other organizations who focused on long term dedication to the understanding and perfection of processes. Those organizations that are focused on innovating in processes management are focused on cultivating cultures where those processes can be adopted. Process maps don’t adopt themselves, people decide to or not. This is why Zero Strategist is cross functional in change management, because nothing hurts worse then engineering great processes that end up not being used. One of the best strategies for success for any organization is to invest the time to map, understand, and continuously hone the processes which drive them to create.

Business Intelligence

Things are moving pretty fast post 2010. Really fast. Faster then they ever have. Business intelligence and competitive intelligence are inexorably linked and critical to maintaining an vital market edge. Yet markets are dynamic and morph seemingly overnight. They are more then data, more then trends and more then listening to the same analysis from the same sources. We have seen that “the impossible” is possible post banking, real estate and global economic crisises. Think bigger. Take strategic risks based on good business intelligence. Drill deeper, search outside the normal scope by listening and looking using new social technology solutions. Knowing what is happening and figuring out what is next will help you to make better decisions and position ahead of the status quo to capture gaps that no one knew were there. Get there first by creating demand with new niches and reap rewards you never imagined.