Capability
Strategy & Business Advisory
We are brought in when a decision is large enough that being wrong is expensive. The work is analytical and numerate, and it ends in a recommendation someone can act on — usually one we can then help execute.
In short
The problem
A capital decision has to be made — a new market, a project, an acquisition, a transformation programme — and the internal case for it rests on assumptions nobody has independently tested. The people building the case are usually the people who want the answer to be yes.
Why it matters
These decisions are difficult to reverse. A project approved on optimistic yield assumptions does not fail at approval; it fails in year three, when the capital is committed, the team is built and the alternatives have gone. The cost of being wrong is rarely the study fee.
Who typically needs this
- Boards and promoters weighing a capital commitment
- Founders and business heads entering a new market or segment
- Developers structuring a project, concession or PPP
- Investors and lenders testing a thesis before committing
- Public bodies requiring a defensible feasibility case
What we do
- Business & corporate strategy
- Growth strategy
- Market entry
- Project development
- Investment advisory
- Feasibility studies
- Public-private partnership advisory
- Transformation roadmaps
Most strategy work fails at the handover. A recommendation arrives, the consultants leave, and the organisation discovers the plan assumed things the plant, the balance sheet, or the regulator will not permit.
We work the other way. Because the same firm delivers energy infrastructure, safety systems and software, our strategy work is constrained by what can actually be built — and when the recommendation is accepted, we can carry it through rather than handing it to somebody else.
That constraint changes the analysis. A yield assumption written by someone who will have to commission the asset is a different number from one taken off a benchmark table.
What you actually receive
Services describe activity. These are the artefacts that exist at the end, and that you own.
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Decision quality review
An independent assessment of a case already prepared internally, tested against the seven questions above. Frequently the fastest engagement we run, and the one that has prevented the most capital from being misallocated.
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Option comparison
The realistic alternatives — including doing less, doing it later, and buying rather than building — costed to the same standard as the proposal, so the committee is choosing rather than ratifying.
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Feasibility report
Technical and commercial viability, with the assumption set exposed and each assumption labelled measured, benchmarked or estimated. Written to be read by an investment committee and interrogated by its most sceptical member.
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Financial model
A working model handed over to you, not a locked PDF of outputs. Sensitivity-tested on the variables that actually move the answer, with the breakpoints identified — the values at which the recommendation reverses.
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Market entry assessment
The viable routes named and priced, with the regulatory path, competitive position and capability gap for each. Including the option of not entering.
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Transformation roadmap
Sequenced by dependency rather than ambition, with owners, budget envelopes and the first ninety days specified in enough detail that work starts on Monday.
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Board presentation
The decision framed for governance — options, recommendation, risks, and what would have to be true for the recommendation to be wrong. Built to be presented by you, not by us.
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PPP / concession structuring note
Risk allocation, commercial structure and regulatory route, written to survive scrutiny over a concession period rather than to win an approval meeting.
How we approach the work
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We separate the decision from the advocate
Internal business cases are usually built by the people who want the project. We are engaged to test the case, not to strengthen it. That means the first deliverable is often a list of assumptions nobody had written down.
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Every assumption is labelled
Measured, benchmarked, or estimated. Estimates get sensitivity analysis, and we identify the breakpoint — the value at which the recommendation reverses. If the case only works within a narrow band, you should know the width of that band.
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Engineering constrains the model
Yield, availability, degradation, ramp and outage assumptions are engineering questions that arrive dressed as financial inputs. We source them from people who deliver the asset, which is a material difference from a firm that cannot.
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We present the case against
Every recommendation is accompanied by the strongest argument we can make against it. A board that hears only one side cannot govern the decision, and a consultant who supplies only one side is selling rather than advising.
The Decision Quality Framework
Decision quality is separable from outcome quality: a sound decision can produce a poor result, and a reckless one can get lucky. Boards that judge decisions by outcomes teach the organisation the wrong lesson. These seven questions test the decision, before the outcome is known.
- 01
The counterfactual
What actually happens if we do nothing, or do something smaller?
What goes wrong without it
Most business cases compare the project against zero. The honest comparison is against the realistic alternative — deferring, doing a third of it, buying instead of building, or renegotiating a contract. Measured against nothing, almost any project looks compelling.
What resolves it
A base case that reflects what the organisation would actually do otherwise, and at least one materially smaller option costed to the same standard.
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The falsifier
What would have to be true for this to fail, and how early would we know?
What goes wrong without it
Without this, the decision cannot be governed after approval. Projects continue because stopping requires someone to volunteer that they were wrong, and no agreed condition exists to make that a normal act rather than an admission.
What resolves it
Written falsification conditions with the observable indicators and the review point at which they are assessed — agreed before approval, when nobody is committed.
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Concentration
What does this commit us to that we would find hard to unwind?
What goes wrong without it
Capital concentration is usually visible. The concentrations that hurt are the quiet ones — a single supplier, a single customer, one technology path, one regulatory assumption, or the attention of the three people who can actually deliver it.
What resolves it
An explicit list of dependencies created by the decision, with the ones that are difficult to reverse separated from the ones that are merely expensive.
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Reversibility
If we are wrong, when do we find out and what does exit cost?
What goes wrong without it
Reversible and irreversible decisions are routinely given the same analytical treatment — which over-analyses the cheap ones and under-analyses the expensive ones. Committees spend weeks on decisions they could unwind in a month, then approve a twenty-year commitment in the same session.
What resolves it
A stated position on reversibility, with faster approval for decisions that can be undone and materially deeper scrutiny for those that cannot.
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Capacity
Who delivers this, and what do they stop doing?
What goes wrong without it
The most common cause of failure that never appears in a business case. The financial model assumes management bandwidth that is already committed, and the project competes for it with everything else the same people are accountable for.
What resolves it
Named owners with their existing commitments stated, and an explicit decision about what is deprioritised to make room.
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The advocate test
Who benefits from approval, and who has independently tested the numbers?
What goes wrong without it
Business cases are built by people who want the answer to be yes. That is not dishonesty — it is ordinary selection bias in assumptions, each individually defensible, accumulating in one direction.
What resolves it
Assumptions labelled measured, benchmarked or estimated, and a review by someone with no stake in the outcome. Where the case is thin, that should be visible in the paper rather than discovered in year three.
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The twenty-year question
Does this still make sense if the current tailwind reverses?
What goes wrong without it
Decisions taken at the top of a cycle assume the cycle. Tariff structures, policy support, demand growth and the cost of capital all move, and an asset with a twenty-five year life will see several of those reversals.
What resolves it
Sensitivity on the two or three external conditions the case actually depends on, with the breakpoints identified — the values at which the decision would not have been taken.
How we deliver
Our full delivery model →Every engagement runs on the same model, whatever the discipline — one accountable partner, a fixed reporting cadence, a live risk register and a decision log.
Strategy engagements usually run stages one to four. Where the recommendation is accepted and you want it delivered, the same partner carries it into implementation and governance rather than handing it to a new team.
- 01 Discovery
- 02 Assessment
- 03 Strategy
- 04 Planning
- 05 Implementation
- 06 Governance
- 07 Handover and improvement
- One accountable partner, end to end
- Fortnightly written reporting, including the quiet weeks
- We agree in advance what would make us recommend stopping
Who this is for, and what they arrive with
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Manufacturing
Capital allocation between capacity, energy and automation, where the three compete for the same budget and are usually evaluated separately by different functions.
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Infrastructure & developers
Feasibility cases that must satisfy lenders, concession authorities and an investment committee simultaneously — audiences with different definitions of an acceptable risk.
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Government & PSUs
Detailed project reports and PPP structures that have to withstand audit and public scrutiny years after the officers who commissioned them have moved on.
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Investors & lenders
Technical and commercial diligence where the financial model's weakest assumptions are engineering ones the deal team cannot independently assess.
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Data centres
Site, power and phasing decisions taken under a build timeline that will not move, with sustainability commitments attached to the financing.
Standards & practice
- Investment-committee grade financial modelling
- Sensitivity and scenario analysis with documented breakpoints
- Indian PPP and concession frameworks
- Detailed Project Report (DPR) conventions for public sector submission
- Financial modelling to investment-committee standard, not illustrative spreadsheets
- Feasibility work constrained by engineering reality, because the same firm delivers the engineering
- PPP and concession structuring under current Indian regulatory frameworks
- Partner-led — the people who scope the work do the work
Questions buyers ask about this work
How long does a strategy engagement take?
A focused feasibility study is typically six to ten weeks. A market entry assessment is eight to twelve. A full transformation roadmap for a multi-site group is three to four months. We would rather scope tightly and extend than quote a long engagement to be safe — and we will tell you at proposal stage if we think the timeline you have in mind is unrealistic.
Will you tell us not to proceed?
Yes, and we have. A feasibility study that always concludes "proceed" is a sales document, and a board that has never received a negative recommendation from an adviser should ask why. The written falsification conditions we agree at the start exist precisely so that conclusion can be reached without argument.
Do you take a position in the projects you advise on?
No. Where our energy or AI ventures could deliver part of the work, that is disclosed at proposal stage and you remain free to tender it competitively. Advice is not a route to selling ourselves downstream work, and a conflict that is not declared is a conflict either way.
Can you work with our existing strategy consultants?
Yes. A common shape is us taking the technical or delivery half where a strategy firm is already engaged, or reviewing work already done. If we think the existing approach is sound, we will say so.
Who actually does the work?
The partner who scopes the engagement. We are small on purpose, we do not staff junior, and there is no separate delivery team to hand things to after the sale.
Can you review a business case our team has already built?
Yes, and it is often the most efficient thing we do. A decision quality review tests an existing case against the seven questions above — counterfactual, falsifier, concentration, reversibility, capacity, advocate and cycle exposure. It takes two to three weeks and frequently changes the shape of a proposal rather than its direction.