Services

Strategy consulting that ends in a plan the company can run

Wills Business provides strategy consulting to owners and executives of mid-sized companies and family groups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The work answers three questions: where to compete, how to grow, and what to stop doing. It ends with a written strategy, a three-year plan with named owners and numbers, and a first-year budget your finance team can load. It does not end with a deck that describes the company to itself.

Thirty minutes. No deck. A senior consultant replies.

Who comes to us for strategy work

An owner facing a growth decision. A second market, a new product line, a move from Cairo into Riyadh or from Dubai into Egypt, a franchise, a plant. The choice will tie up capital for years and you want the options laid out side by side before you pick one.

A company where growth has flattened. Revenue has plateaued, margins have thinned, and the management team disagrees about why. A family group with six businesses and no view of which ones deserve the next dirham or pound. You need an independent diagnosis and a set of choices, not more opinions.

An executive team under a new mandate. A new CEO, a new board, an investor with a three-year horizon, or a Vision 2030 programme that has changed the rules of your sector. The company needs a strategy it can present, defend and measure.

What you get

A strategy engagement with Wills Business delivers:

Strategic diagnosis: where the company makes and loses money today, by product, customer and market; cost to serve; competitive position; the capabilities that are real and the ones that are assumed.
Market and competitor view: the size and growth of each option in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, built from primary and secondary research, with regulatory and licensing checks (GAFI in Egypt, MISA in Saudi Arabia, mainland or free zone in the UAE) where a market entry is on the table.
Strategic options paper: three to five ways forward, each with the investment required, the expected return, the main risks, and what would have to be true for it to work.
The chosen strategy: one document that records the choices made and the ones rejected, so the reasoning survives the people who made it.
Three-year plan: initiatives, owners, milestones, capital needs and the KPIs the board will track.
First-year operating plan and budget, with the board pack used to approve it.
A review cadence: the quarterly meeting format and the dashboard that keeps the plan alive after we leave.

Deliverables are produced in English, Arabic or both, and presented to the board or family council by the consultant who did the work.

How the work runs

Scoping (week 1). We agree the question, the people involved, the data we need and the fee. You receive a written scope.
Diagnosis (weeks 2 to 5). Interviews with owners, managers, key customers and suppliers. Financial and operational data pulled and rebuilt into a view of where money is made. Market research where the answer is not already known.
Options (weeks 5 to 8). Two working sessions with the owners and executive team. Options are costed, tested and narrowed. Nothing is decided in our absence and nothing is decided without numbers.
Decision and plan (weeks 8 to 12). The strategy document, three-year plan, first-year budget and board pack. One review cycle, then final delivery and presentation.

What goes wrong without it

Strategy as a slogan. "Become the leading provider in the region" is an ambition, not a strategy. It says nothing about which customers, which markets, at what price, funded how.
Growth in every direction. The company enters Saudi Arabia, launches two products and opens a retail arm in the same year. Management attention and cash are spread across all of them and none reaches scale.
The plan nobody owns. The off-site produced twelve initiatives. Nine months later, each has three sponsors and no budget line.
Copying the market leader. What works for a listed company in Riyadh with a different cost base and a different shareholder rarely works for a family company in Alexandria.

Market research and market entry when the strategic question is which market, and the evidence is not yet in hand.
Feasibility studies when the strategy has chosen a project and the bank or board needs it proven.
Operations consulting when the strategy is clear and the operating model is what holds it back.
Consulting in Saudi Arabia for strategy work tied to Vision 2030 sectors and Saudi market entry.

Frequently asked questions

What is strategy consulting? It is structured help with the decisions that set a company's direction for the next three to five years: which markets and customers to serve, how to win against competitors, where to invest, and what to stop. A strategy consultant brings an independent view, market evidence and a method for making the choice, and leaves behind a plan the company can execute.

What is the difference between strategy consulting and management consulting? Strategy consulting sets direction. Management consulting is the broader category, which also covers how the company runs: operations, organization, finance, technology. Wills Business does both. Many engagements start with a strategy question and continue into the operational changes it requires.

How long does a strategy engagement take? A full strategy runs a few months from scope to board presentation. A focused go-to-market question for one product or one market is faster. The timeline is fixed in the written scope.

How much does strategy consulting cost? Fixed fee per scope, quoted in writing after the scoping call. The fee depends on the number of businesses and markets in question and how much primary research the diagnosis needs. We do not bill by the hour.

Do you help implement the strategy? Yes, when asked. The three-year plan is built so your own team can run it. Where the plan calls for operational change, organization design or a system selection, we scope that as a separate engagement with its own timeline and fee.

Do you do market entry strategy for Saudi Arabia and the UAE? Yes. Market entry is a common strategy question for Egyptian companies moving into the Gulf and for Gulf companies moving into Egypt. We cover the market case, the licensing route, the partner or distributor options and the launch plan. See market research and market entry for the research component.

Tell us the decision you are facing

Thirty minutes on a call. You describe the choice in front of the company. We tell you whether it needs a full strategy engagement or a narrower piece of work, how long it would take, and what it would cost.