When a 120-Page Strategy Deck Doesn't Move the Needle
- Chris Hug
- May 18
- 6 min read
At-a-glance
Enterprise software and services company, ~750 employees, established market player
Challenge: AI business unit growing 50%, but aimed 100% YoY for the next five years
Costs rising faster than revenue
Attempt: 12-month process with external advisory (6 months creating a 120-page strategy deck, 6 months trying to implement it)
Approach: 3-month customer-centric PMF diagnosis focused on Offering and Story dimensions
Results: Revenue growth increased to 67% despite economic headwinds, CAC and sales cycles improved, business unit head: "We achieved more in 7-12 weeks than in the previous 12-month process."
The strategy that looked perfect on paper
The business unit head sat in the conference room with the 120-page strategy deck.
Months of work. External advisory firm. Deep market analysis. Trend projections. Competitive landscape. Technology roadmaps. AI capability matrices.
It was comprehensive. It was impressive. It was completely unusable.
The sales team read it. Product read it. Marketing read it. Nobody could turn it into action.
One sales rep finally said what everyone was thinking: "It's very hard to sell these offering packages."
The ambition was clear
The still-small AI business unit had grown by 50% the previous year. Solid performance. But the company wanted to be a market leader in AI solutions and a 100% year-over-year growth for the next five years.
They invested. Hired specialists. Expanded marketing and sales resources. Engaged an external advisory firm for strategic guidance.
Costs increased faster than revenue.
The 120-page deck was supposed to fix that. Five to six months to create it. Charts. Frameworks. Market segmentation. Growth projections.
It analysed the AI market thoroughly. What it didn't do was tell the teams what to do on Monday morning.
What the deck missed
The strategy was market-focused, not customer-focused.
It detailed AI trends. Technology capabilities. What competitors were doing. Market size projections.
What it didn't explain:
Which specific customers to target
What problems did those customers actually face
How the company's offering maps to real customer needs
What products, sales, and marketing should do differently
The deck described the landscape. The teams needed a map to navigate it.
As the business unit head put it later: "We knew the market was big. We didn't know which customers to serve, what use cases or how to address them."
The real problem: FOMO-driven positioning
When we ran the PMF diagnosis, the gaps became clear within weeks.
Offering Dimension: Too generic, too broad
The company positioned itself as an AI solutions provider. Any AI project. Any industry. Any use case.
That worked when enterprises were experimenting with AI. "Let's try something with machine learning" was enough to get a project started.
Then the market matured. Customers stopped buying generic AI capabilities. They wanted specific solutions for specific problems:
Manufacturing companies need predictive maintenance for their equipment architecture
Financial services need fraud detection integrated with their compliance systems
Healthcare providers need patient workflow optimisation within strict regulatory constraints
Generic AI offerings no longer resonated. Customers needed use cases tailored to their architecture, processes, and people.
But the company was reluctant to narrow its focus. Fear of missing out. What if we turn away revenue?
Story Dimension: Capability-focused, not customer-centric
The company's positioning talked about what they could do:
"Advanced machine learning capabilities"
"Cutting-edge AI technology"
"Scalable artificial intelligence solutions"
The 120-page deck reinforced this. It analysed AI trends and technology evolution. It didn't analyse customer problems. The story wasn't about customers. It was about the company's cool technology.
The diagnosis: Offering and Story dimensions were both weak. Customer dimension unclear (who exactly are we serving?). The 120-page deck analysed the market but never put the company in the customer's shoes.
The sunk cost trap
When we recommended a different approach, resistance came immediately.
"We already have a strategy. We spent nine months and a significant budget on it."
The deck sat in the room. Expensive. Comprehensive. Unusable.
Letting go felt like admitting the investment was wasted. But holding on meant another six months of the same results.
The unit head made the call: "Let's try a customer-centric approach. Three months. If we don't see progress, we go back to the deck."
The work: Customer centricity strategy in 3 months
We ran a Quickstart session focused on one question: Who are the customers where we win, and why?
Then we used our PMF System and facilitation to gather actual data:
Week 1-2: Strategic positioning and target sweet spot
Mapped current customers by segment, retention, and expansion patterns
Identified 3-4 potential ideal customer profiles
Analysed where the company had the strongest proof points
Week 3-6: Targeted persona research
Interviewed customers who expanded vs. those who didn't renew
Researched specific use cases, pain points, and decision criteria for each persona
Combined internal data with external market intelligence
Used AI frameworks to synthesise patterns across interviews
Week 7-9: Segment prioritisation and story development
Assessed market potential for each segment
Mapped offering fit to the persona's needs
Prioritised 2 segments with the strongest PMF signals
Developed customer-centric positioning and messaging
Week 10-12: Offering refinement and rollout
Restructured offering packages for priority segments
Created segment-specific sales collateral
Trained teams on new positioning
Launched focused campaigns
What made it different from the 120-page deck:
Customer interviews, not just market analysis
Specific recommendations for product, sales, and marketing teams
Ready for validation and execution in weeks, not months
Built internal capability through collaboration, not dependency on external consultants
The turning point
Seven weeks in, the sales team reported the first shift.
"The new positioning makes sense. Prospects get it immediately. We're having different conversations."
Deals that had stalled started moving. Win rates improved. Sales cycles shortened.
By three months:
CAC trending down
Sales cycles improving
Conversion rates increasing
Revenue growth accelerated to 67%. Not the 100% target, but significantly better than the trajectory they were on
The AI business head's assessment: "We achieved more in 7-12 weeks than in the previous 9-month process with the strategy deck. This was tangible. Teams could actually implement it."
Economic conditions had worsened during this period. Market sentiment around AI investments turned more cautious. Despite that, growth accelerated.
What made the difference
Not more market analysis. Not more trend reports. Not more capability matrices.
Customer-centricity.
Understanding which customers had urgent problems that the company could solve. Building offerings around those specific needs. Positioning the story from the customer's perspective, not the company's.
The 120-page deck analysed the market. The PMF diagnosis analysed the customers.
That's the difference between a strategy that looks good in a presentation and a strategy you can execute.
The pattern we see repeatedly
Companies invest in comprehensive strategy work. External consultants. Deep analysis. Polished deliverables.
The strategy describes the market opportunity. It doesn't diagnose product-market fit.
When teams can't turn it into action, leaders assume they need better execution. More resources. More training. More time.
But if the strategy isn't customer-centric, if it doesn't translate to how teams work and who the products are for, execution won't help.
The companies that move fastest are the ones that:
Recognise when strategy is disconnected from customer reality
Let go of sunk costs (the expensive deck that isn't working)
Focus on customer-centric diagnosis over market trend analysis
Build internal capability to execute, not dependency on external reports
The dimensions diagnosis
This was primarily an Offering and Story dimension problem:
Offering Dimension: Generic AI capabilities didn't match what customers needed (specific use cases for their architecture)
Story Dimension: Capability-focused positioning didn't resonate with customer problems
But both stemmed from weak clarity in the
Customer Dimension: the company didn't have a clear answer to "which specific customers do we serve best?"
The 120-page deck reinforced this. It analysed the total addressable market. It didn't help the company focus.
Fear of missing out kept them broad. Customer-centric diagnosis helped them focus.
About this story
All details are from a real engagement. Company and individual identities are anonymised to protect competitive confidentiality. We work with clients on sensitive strategic challenges and respect their privacy.
Facing a similar situation?
You have a strategy. It looks good on paper. Teams can't turn it into action.
Maybe the problem isn't execution. Maybe the strategy analysed the market, but didn't diagnose your product-market fit.
Customer-centric diagnosis answers different questions:
Which customers do we serve best?
What specific problems do they face?
How does our offering map to their needs?
What story resonates with their reality?
That's what moves the needle.
