Business Strategy Tools for Shipping Professionals

Course Description

Strategic management has been around for the better part of a century and the field is packed with exciting insights and models. Yet strategies fail spectacularly every day partly because the underlying methodology and skillset – strategic problem solving – is not available to the public. McKinsey, BCG and Bain are renowned around the world for their sharp analyses and solid solutions across industries including shipping, where the focus is here. Their approach - pioneered by McKinsey and then adopted by the other top tier strategy consultancies – involves 7 deceptively simple steps:

1) Defining the problem for maximum impact

2) Break the problem down to issues for early hypothesis

3) Prioritize the issues for optimal speed

4) Build a detailed work plan for efficient collaboration

5) Conduct the critical analyses by leveraging team expertise

6) Interpret the findings to find the essence

7) Tell the story to compel top management to action

This 2-day course will use a combination of short transport cases, insightful personal exercises and real life stories from the facilitator’s shipping career to bring the 7 steps to life. Parts of Barbara Minto: The Minto Pyramid Principle and Ethan M. Rasiel & Paul N. Friga: The McKinsey Mind are recommended reading.

Program Topics

Day 1

• How do the masters of strategy solve problems and how do you define a problem for maximum impact
• How do you break down problems and solve the problem on the first meeting
• How do you prioritize issues for optimal speed with limited knowledge
• How do you quickly build a sharp work plan and conduct analyses without hard data

Day 2

• How do you interpret the findings and structure your argument
• Why are almost all presentations done exactly wrong and how do you get it right
• How do you design your presentation to compel management to action
• How do you apply all of the learnings to a real life shipping project

Key Benefits

As a result of attending this program, participants will learn:

• How the masters of strategy solve complex problems
• Why a rigid method yield more innovative results
• How you test the strength of a solution before presenting
• How you quickly go from chaos to laser sharp focus
• How you make a killer analysis
• Why strategies often are poor and how you avoid it
• Why almost all presentations are done exactly wrong and how to do it right