Francis WadeFramework Consulting · Consultant who solves tough strategy and productivity problems for corporations | Author | Web-Speaker | Jump Leap Long-Term Strategy Podcast

Eddie Yoon clips 3 for the Long-Term Strategic Planning Conferene

Name: Eddie Yoon clips 3 for the Long-Term Strategic Planning Conferene
Uploaded: 2024-06-18T14:45:46+00:00
Duration: 1 min 52 s
Channel: Francis Wade
Description: In this segment of a long‑term strategic planning conference, Speaker A (Francis) argues that beyond forecasting trends, consultants must help CEOs…

18 Jun 2024 · 2 min

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1:52

In this segment of a long‑term strategic planning conference, Speaker A (Francis) argues that beyond forecasting trends, consultants must help CEOs imagine entirely new product categories by studying consumer tastes. He stresses that delivering insights about future categories makes consultants indispensable to CEOs. He references Eddie’s earlier point about the need for "brutal honesty" in diagnosing problems. Speaker B (Eddie) expands on this, explaining that categories provide the essential context for strategy. Using Anheuser‑Busch’s 48% beer‑market share as an example, he shows that incremental market share gains are hard, so growth must come from entering adjacent categories where the company’s strengths apply. He links the need to uncover the root problem (requiring brutal honesty) to the next step—exercising "radical courage" to redefine the category context and pursue bold growth opportunities.

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I put it to you that this is your work also, that imagining new future categories for companies is as important as predicting some of the major trends that are a traditional part of those, those disciplines. In other words, what CEOs want, in addition to you telling them that here's what's going to happen in the future that's going to be affecting your business, is, in my industry, where are tastes going? How can I understand the taste in a way that— and can you study taste and the categories that are related to our products, whatever they might be, so that you can present us new categories that we can't think of on our own? You know, you get to that level of helping CEOs and they'll never let you go. All right. So Eddie talked about the need to be brutal about and brutally honest. That's the first. Let's call that the first bit of the solution. Eddie, take us into the next two parts.
Well, it ties perfectly, Francis, with what you were just saying is that one way to talk about categories, I mean, the reason why categories are important is that categories provide context. And that you can't think about a strategy without context., right? The context for Anheuser was you have a 48% share of beer. It's really hard to get to 49%. And so how do you grow? You have to grow by entering other categories in a different way that you are actually good at, right? And so the category is so important because context is king. And behind every context is a problem that you're trying to solve for. And that it is when you get to the root of the problem, This is the part where you segue from brutal honesty to radical courage is that