Strategy Consulting
Strategy is an articulation of how an organization will achieve its goals. The Hill Group’s strategy development and business consulting services help an organization define those strategies in the context of changing internal and external forces, navigating ever-changing complexities while positioning for sustained competitive advantage.
Our approach to strategy development helps organizations understand market forces, identify and prioritize strategy alternatives, and make decisions on strategies to achieve an identified mission and vision. We have experience developing successful strategies in numerous industries, including education, healthcare, government, manufacturing, nonprofit, and more.
Decision Support and Analysis
Decision support and analysis helps an organization identify, pursue, and achieve an optimal outcome. The Hill Group’s process for providing decision support is both an art and a science, and it begins with building a quantitative model to develop and weight evaluation criteria, identify decision alternatives, rank or rate those alternatives, and ultimately determine the optimal path forward.
Strategic Planning and Management
Strategic planning is a thoughtful and deliberate process to articulate a vision and define the steps, or strategies, to achieve it.
Our approach to planning is highly participatory and data-driven, and we spend the time required to get to know your organization and industry, its structure, its culture, and how best to identify strategic opportunities to achieve your goals. The Hill Group’s framework for strategic planning, like many strategic planning models, typically contains three phases: Situational Analysis, Strategy Formulation, and Strategy Implementation. Strategic planning helps organizations develop a roadmap to success by defining activities necessary to fulfill their mission and achieve their vision.
Strategic management includes the policies, processes, systems, and structures that an organization uses to implement its strategic plan, including revising the plan as operating environments evolve. Our consultants can translate an enterprise-wide strategic plan into divisional or departmental operating plans, equip leaders and managers for successful strategic management, and routinely scan the environment for signals that strategy and actions plans may need to be revisited.
Business Planning and Feasibility Assessments
We partner with clients to define future products, programs, or services, assess market supply and competitors, demand and target markets, and the magnitude of opportunity for the new initiative, define operational and organizational requirements to pursue and penetrate that opportunity, and model best case, worst case, and realistic financial impacts. The business plan can then be used in many ways throughout the business life cycle to secure loans, attract investment capital, and develop strategic business partners.
Market Research and Analysis
The Hill Group conducts market research and provides data analysis for a wide range of entities including government agencies, corporations, universities, health care systems, and nonprofit organizations. Our experts perform primary and secondary research and conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis to inform strategy development or key decision-making. We believe that strategic and competitive advantages arise from timely decisions informed by insights and intelligence driven by data.
Mergers, Acquisitions, and Strategic Alliance Planning
The Hill Group provides advice, counsel, and implementation support to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations seeking to acquire, be acquired, or establish joint ventures or other forms of collaborative operating models. Through pre-transaction exploration, our consultants can help articulate decision criteria, define the most appropriate collaboration model, identify and prioritize targets or partners, facilitate exploratory conversations, and perform valuation. Once a partner is identified, consultants perform management-related due diligence to deeply investigate the administrative, financial, and operational functions of the partner, often working with outside legal counsel who performs legal due diligence simultaneously. Upon completion of due diligence and a decision to proceed, The Hill Group can work with legal counsel to prepare for and execute the transaction. Once the transaction is finalized, our consultants can develop and help execute a plan for functional integration, cultural integration, and change management.
Related Case Studies
The University and its Alumni Association engaged The Hill Group to evaluate its position within the market environment, determine the desired state of the Alumni Association, assess other organizations to identify areas for internal improvement, and develop a strategy that will provide a roadmap for three to five years.
The Erie Conference on Community Development (ECCD) and the Erie Metropolitan Planning Organization (EMPO) wanted to more effectively manage and utilize public transportation assets to enhance economic development, improve public service delivery, reduce operating costs, and optimize revenues.
Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation receives the most NIH funding for women’s health research and has transformed the field. Through a strategic plan focused on global impact, The Hill Group helped MWRIF to identify critical priorities and investments for the next ten years that will transform women’s health research around the world.
The Community Foundation for the Alleghenies serves four distinct and diverse counties and amassed nearly $100 million in assets over its 30-plus years. The Hill Group performed primary and secondary market research and facilitated long-term planning to amplify CFA’s growth and impact and continue to position the organization at the forefront of community leadership.
The United Way engaged The Hill Group to assesses changes in community needs brought about by the economic downturn and to develop a strategy to maximize the impact of United Way resources on financially struggling adults and families in Allegheny County.
Manchester Bidwell was in a position to enhance the capacity and sustainability of the organization. Hill Group Consultants, with support from The Heinz Endowments, completed a three-phase project, including an organizational capacity review, strategic planning process, and business planning process.
The Community Foundation of the Northern Alleghenies, serving two counties in rural Pennsylvania with nearly $20 million in assets, engaged The Hill Group to reimagine its vision for the future, build capacity, and help prepare the organization for smooth leadership transitions through a single-day, high-impact planning retreat.
The Clinical Education Task whose mission was to develop recommendations that will expand the capacity of the clinical education system to allow an increase of more students in Pennsylvania’s nursing programs. They partnered with The Hill Group and identified and prioritized three major issues that influence clinical education capacity.
The Maryland Governor’s Workforce Investment Board (GWIB) wanted to address critical shortages in Maryland’s healthcare workforce and asked The Hill Group to manage and facilitate the Governor’s Healthcare Workforce Summit to engage stakeholders industry-wide in tackling this critical challenge.
The Hill Group also offers consulting services for organizational performance and organizational process improvement