Corporate Strategy Consulting
in Manufacturing

The short answer

Most plant directors who go looking for corporate strategy have a line or cell question, and the two have opposite answers. The version of this question that applies to manufacturers is not the generic one. The $45M automation case depends on the very customer that causes the margin problem — so an answer that ignores contribution per machine hour will be confidently wrong. The analysis has to start from capacity utilisation and customer concentration rather than from revenue.

The distinction is not academic. Corporate strategy asks where to play: which of the three plants and machine groups to hold, what automation to buy, what capacity to sell, how capital moves between plants, and what the centre does that justifies its cost. Line strategy asks how to win: changeover times, scrap rate, takt, capacity utilisation, and contribution per machine hour against the specific customer. Both are legitimate; they use different evidence and produce different decisions.

The reason they get confused is that the symptom is often identical. Flat $310M consolidated revenue looks the same whether the cause is one underperforming plant or three plants whose customer bases and machine sets have no operational relationship. The test is what happens when you disaggregate: if contribution per machine hour and scrap rate move together across plants, you have a competitive problem in a single market and the portfolio view will not find it. If one plant’s utilisation is carrying the other two, you have a portfolio problem and no amount of takt or changeover work inside the weak plants will fix it.

The second thing corporate strategy is for, and the one most often skipped, is the parenting question — what the centre adds. A corporate centre earns its cost either by allocating machine hours and automation capital better than the plants would alone, by supplying a capability such as shared scrap-reduction engineering the plants could not buy, or by imposing utilisation discipline the plants would not impose on themselves. If it does none of those, it is a tax on the plants, and the honest strategic answer may be to shrink it rather than to redirect it.

Corporate Strategy & Transformation (catalog id t5) runs the portfolio arithmetic — contribution per machine hour by plant, capacity utilisation against capital consumed, the overhead each plant actually carries — and produces the allocation view. Where the answer turns out to be a single-market competitive question, it will say so and point at the narrower analysis rather than dressing a positioning problem in portfolio language.

How to tell this is actually your problem

These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.

✓ Group revenue at $310M is flat while contribution per machine hour and scrap rate move in opposite directions across the three plants.
✓ No one at the centre can name a capability, such as shared changeover or automation engineering, that a plant could not source for itself.
✓ Capital requests for new machines or automation are approved roughly in line with last year’s volumes rather than current utilisation or customer concentration.

The move that usually makes it worse. Running a portfolio review on a manufacturer whose three plants share the same customer set and automation case, which produces a recommendation to divest the plant that was carrying the margin problem.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance a manufacturer and the group result is flat and the units inside it are not moving together. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.

It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.

What this looks like when the analysis is actually run

Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a manufacturer. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.

The subject is Kessler Industrial Components, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $310M revenue, three plants.

This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.

What the engine does with this question

This question routes to Corporate Strategy & Transformation, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For manufacturers it works through contribution per machine hour, capacity utilisation, customer concentration and scrap, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.

You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.

Questions people ask about this

What is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy?

Corporate strategy decides which businesses to be in and how capital moves between them. Business strategy decides how to win inside one of them. A single-market company has no corporate strategy question worth paying for — it has a competitive one. A group with three units and one balance sheet has both, and answering them in the wrong order is the common failure.

What does corporate strategy consulting cost?

A portfolio review from a large firm is commonly £150k–£500k for eight to twelve weeks; boutiques and independents do narrower versions for £40k–£120k. The variance is driven almost entirely by how much primary data collection is in scope. If your own finance system can already produce contribution and capital by unit, most of that cost is buying analysis of numbers you already hold.

Is a BCG matrix still a useful way to look at a portfolio?

As a summary, yes; as a decision rule, no. Growth and share are two of the variables that matter and they are the easiest two to obtain, which is why the matrix persists. It becomes misleading when a unit with modest share is the one generating the cash that funds everything else, and the grid says to divest it. Use it to organise the conversation, then decide on return against capital consumed.

Is this different in manufacturing than in other industries?

Materially, yes. The $45M automation case depends on the very customer that causes the margin problem — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are contribution per machine hour, capacity utilisation, customer concentration, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.

What data do I need before this analysis is worth running for a manufacturer?

Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on contribution per machine hour and capacity utilisation. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.

When is Percision the wrong tool?

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Does Percision replace a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, or AI implementation team?

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.