Hiring a Strategic Planning Consultant
in Fintech

The short answer

A plan and a decision are different objects, and the annual process reliably produces the first while the fintech needed the second on whether to place loans on the warehouse facility. What makes this harder for fintech companies is structural: lending fixed the P&L and converts revenue worth a 7x multiple into revenue worth a 2x multiple. Any credible answer therefore has to hold blended take rate and charge-off rate in the same view, which is exactly where most internal analysis stops because the two live in different systems.

Annual planning follows the same sequence. Each team proposes higher TPV or merchant count, the blended take rate and contribution margin targets are summed, the implied warehouse facility size exceeds what the balance sheet supports, and every line is trimmed by the same percentage. The output never forces a choice between payment volume that earns a 7x multiple and lending that converts the same revenue to a 2x multiple; it only requires accepting smaller growth in both.

The consultant is brought in to force the choice, yet the limit is rarely facilitation skill. Recording the loss appears on the P&L as higher charge-offs or lower contribution margin, and the process is built to keep every channel and product from showing that loss. An outside voice improves the meeting flow but cannot alter which executive must own the reduction in blended take rate, so the document returns as a list of volume targets.

The second reason for hiring remains valid: only an outsider has time to pull five years of TPV, charge-off, and CAC data by channel and show the arithmetic of each option. That assembly work is real, cannot be done while running daily operations, and is the part where external help still adds value even though parts of the data extraction are now automated.

Corporate Strategy & Transformation (catalog id t5) performs exactly that assembly: it constructs the cases for each path, states the required contribution margin and warehouse facility size for each, and shows what would have to hold for the 7x path to remain viable. It does not run the offsite and cannot compel the CEO or CFO to accept the lower multiple that lending produces. When the barrier is authority rather than arithmetic, a facilitator is the correct purchase and no model replaces it.

How to tell this is actually your problem

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

✓ The last plan left every merchant-acquisition channel and every lending pilot at the same scale as the prior year.
✓ The same set of initiatives around raising take rate or lowering charge-offs reappears each cycle with no recorded start or stop date.
✓ The final document is produced after the warehouse facility limit and headcount budget have already been set.

The move that usually makes it worse. Hiring a facilitator to resolve a question of authority, which produces a better-run meeting that reaches the same non-decision on the multiple.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance a fintech and the last plan contained no decision to stop doing something. 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 fintech. 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 Verrano Pay, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $84M net revenue, 28,000 merchants, $9.4B of payment volume.

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 fintech companies it works through blended take rate, charge-off rate, contribution margin and CAC by channel, 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 does a strategic planning consultant charge?

An independent facilitator running an offsite and producing a plan is commonly £8k–£30k. A firm running a full planning cycle with analysis is £60k–£200k. The range is wide because the two jobs are different: one is facilitation, one is evidence. Decide which you are short of before you compare quotes, because the cheap version of the wrong one is still wasted.

How long should a strategic plan be?

Short enough that the trade-offs are visible. A useful plan states where you will win, what you will stop, and the two or three things that must be true. Most of the length in a typical planning document is evidence supporting decisions that were already made, which belongs in an appendix nobody needs to read twice.

Should the plan cover three years or one?

Set direction over three and commit resource over one. Three-year financial detail is invented precision in almost every business, and treating it as a commitment makes the plan brittle. The parts that genuinely need a three-year view are capacity, capital and capability, because those are the ones that cannot be changed inside a year.

Is this different in fintech than in other industries?

Materially, yes. Lending fixed the P&L and converts revenue worth a 7x multiple into revenue worth a 2x multiple — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are blended take rate, charge-off rate, contribution margin, 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 fintech?

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 blended take rate and charge-off rate. 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.