Business unit strategy
CCB Consulting’s business unit strategy service supports UK SMEs in converting expansion aspirations into a focused, actionable blueprint for a specific division or product line. We assess current performance and market conditions, make critical strategic decisions about competitive positioning and value creation, then establish the organizational structure, ownership frameworks, and tracking mechanisms needed to achieve objectives.
10 to 30%
Operating cost reduction
20%+
Turnover uplift within 12 months
12 weeks
To set up the growth plan and execution cadence
Request for Proposal
To explore how our consulting services can support your objectives, please submit a request for proposal. Our team will review your requirements and respond with a tailored solution designed to meet your goals.
Alignment, discovery and scoping
We unite the leadership team around a unified vision for the business unit, converting foundational objectives into a clear strategic compass. Simultaneously, we conduct a focused deep-dive into current operations, performance metrics, and data quality to identify the core challenge and prevent addressing surface-level issues.
We examine financial results, customer feedback, critical processes, and stakeholder input to define aspirations, establish scope (clarifying what the unit will pursue and what it won’t), and determine the essential metrics that indicate success.
Standard deliverables include a defined project scope, an assessment of information gaps, an established starting point, and preliminary theories to validate.
Diagnosis and market positioning
We evaluate the business unit’s results and underlying drivers through internal examination (cost structure, profitability, throughput, limitations) and external comparison. This reveals where value is generated or eroded, which constraints are most significant, and which risks require mitigation.
Concurrently, we identify the most attractive markets and customer groups to pursue and determine the unit’s competitive approach. This encompasses audience segmentation, competitive landscape analysis, and sharpening the customer value offering. When pricing represents a critical opportunity, we analyze price sensitivity and structure to maximize revenue capture while preserving demand.
Standard deliverables: assessment findings, profitability and margin analysis, constraint identification, prioritized opportunity portfolio, and preliminary competitive positioning guidance.
Strategic design
We co-create the business unit strategy with your leadership team and turn it into clear, testable decisions. We define where the unit will compete (markets, segments, offers and channels) and how it will win (value proposition, differentiation, pricing architecture, and the value delivery model). We also make explicit choices about what to stop or deprioritise, so resources are not spread across too many initiatives.
We translate the strategy into a portfolio of initiatives with sequencing based on impact, effort, dependencies, and capacity. Each initiative is linked to an owner, a measurable outcome, and the capabilities required to deliver it. Where trade-offs exist, we run scenario planning and simple financial modelling (base, upside, downside) to stress-test the plan against cash flow, resourcing, operational constraints, and delivery risk.
Typical outputs include a 3-year strategic roadmap, initiative portfolio and sequencing, a set of decision-ready scenarios tied to measurable targets, and a clear set of strategic choices that leadership can communicate consistently across the business unit.
Operating model, capability and governance
We build the practical infrastructure that enables reliable delivery as the business expands. This includes establishing clear ownership, role definitions, and decision-making authority, improving coordination between functions, and creating a governance structure that sustains priorities.
Typical outputs include an operational structure design, accountability and escalation frameworks, a focused set of performance metrics, and regular review cycles (weekly and monthly operational meetings plus quarterly strategy sessions).
Implementation support and change management
We go beyond advisory work to serve as an active implementation partner in executing your business unit strategy. Our team assists with sequencing key activities, optimizing resource deployment, and monitoring progress to ensure strategic objectives translate into tangible outcomes.
Simultaneously, we integrate robust change enablement, encompassing stakeholder communications, engagement approaches, and focused capability-building initiatives. Partnering directly with your leadership, we cultivate an environment of adaptability, experimentation, and ongoing refinement, ensuring behaviors and processes align with the evolved business unit to drive lasting performance.
Business-unit strategy defines how a specific division, product line, or service line competes in its market and contributes to the wider company direction. SMEs often don’t have the time, in-house capacity, or specialist perspective to diagnose what’s really driving performance and then turn that into a focused plan. A consultant closes that gap by bringing structured analysis, external benchmarking, and an objective view—so leadership can reduce trial-and-error, align decisions to outcomes, and execute growth with more control.
Most engagements follow a consistent flow: (1) alignment and scoping to agree direction, boundaries, and success measures; (2) diagnosis and market positioning to understand performance drivers, constraints, customer segments, and competitive realities; (3) strategic design to decide where to play, how to win, what to stop, and what to sequence first; (4) operating model and governance to make execution repeatable through clear roles, decision rights, KPIs, and review cadence; and (5) optional implementation support to help the client deliver initiatives, manage change, and embed new ways of working.
Corporate strategy sets the overall direction and scope of the business (what to focus on, where to invest). Business-unit strategy focuses on winning in a specific market for a specific division or product line (how that unit competes and creates advantage). Functional strategy translates the business-unit strategy into department plans (e.g., operations, sales, finance, people), ensuring each function supports execution with the right capabilities and metrics.
For most SMEs, the core strategy work typically takes 8–12 weeks . If the client needs hands-on delivery support, implementation can continue for several months on a lighter retainer basis, depending on complexity and internal capacity.
Clients typically gain clearer direction, faster decision-making, and stronger execution discipline through defined priorities and measurable targets. Results often include revenue uplift, margin improvement, and lower operating costs through sharper positioning/pricing and removal of operational bottlenecks.