To tailor the design of a best-in-class M&A function, companies should answer five critical questions:

1. What is the M&A function’s role in the company? Does it reactively support ad-hoc decisions or proactively shape corporate strategy?
2. What expected value and volume of deals do we need to realize in the next three to five years?
3. Do we want to concentrate expertise on the M&A team or spread it

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Anant Shivraj, Daniel Friedman, Daniel Kim, Jens Kengelbach, Maximilian Strauch
Source: Is Your M&A Organization Built to Win?
Subject: Mergers and Acquisitions Questions

Approach

• What style of annual planning is right for our company?
• Where are we drawing external inspiration from?
• How are we tailoring it to our business model and stage?
• Is there anything we explicitly don’t want to do, because it’s not a fit or we don’t agree with it?

Vision

• How far forward are we looking?
• How are we balancing a big vision with what we can practically do in

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Source: Annual Planning Sucks — A CPO, CRO, CFO, and COO Share Advice on How to Make it Better
Subjects: Management Questions, Strategy Questions

Look at the customer requirement and ask searching questions about why the customer will buy from a business point of view. Here is a checklist.

• What is the customer’s business objective for this campaign?
• What critical success factors declared by the customer does this campaign address?
• What benefits both tangible and intangible will the customer derive form a successful implementation?
• What are the rough costs of all the

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Author: Ken Langdon
Source: Step-by-Step – Sales Campaigning
Subjects: Customer Questions, Sales Questions

1. How many different sales forces should we have?
2. How should they be structured and staffed?
3. What degree of specialization is needed?
4. What is the appropriate mix of in-house and outsourced activities?
5. What resource levels should be dedicated to each sales force?
6. What determines the boundaries between the sales forces?

Authors: Adrian J. Slywotzky, Benson P. Shapiro, Stephen X. Doyle
Source: Strategic Sales Management: A boardroom issue
Subject: Sales Questions

Preparation for a crisis is just as crucial as the response. We recommend that leaders start with their organization’s people, processes, and technology. Here are six essential questions for leaders to ask as they evaluate the operational resilience of this triad:

1. Are we sufficiently prepared for problems when they arise?
2. Are there clear roles and responsibilities for business continuity?
3. What are our risks involving automated software updates?
4. Are

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Authors: Anita Lynch, Hise Gibson
Source: Post-CrowdStrike Six Questions to Test Your Company’s Operational Resilience
Subjects: IT Questions, Risk Management Questions

Here are the things to think through when you are building a compensation strategy.

1. What Is Your Compensation Philosophy? Start with your compensation philosophy. Identify the principles and practices your organization uses to make compensation decisions:
   • Do you generally make offers at the midpoint of the market rate for that role, or is it usually higher or lower? Why?
   • What are the important considerations for how

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Author: Kent Plunkett
Source: How To Hone Your Compensation Strategy
Subject: Human Resources Questions

Here are some crucial things to think about when designing a leadership development process:

• Is it on-going or a one-time training event? Leadership development, just like personal development, is a process and cannot be accomplished in one sitting.
• Have you identified what your leaders must know and be able to do in order to be effective? A list of targeted skills and/or abilities (those popular competencies)

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Authors: Janet Oliver, Joe DiSabatino
Source: What Executives Need to Know About Developing Their Leaders
Subject: Human Resources Questions

Ecosystems and ecosystem thinking are the lens through which you should view important decisions about your value proposition, as well as about how to capture and deliver value. Below are questions you should ask. 

Value Proposition

• Will ecosystems change where we should compete?
• What unmet customer needs will be most promising?
• What new customer segments might we serve?    

Value Capture

• How can we benefit from value pool shifts?
• Which costs will drive

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Authors: Matthew Duffey, Venky Jayaraman, Veronique Roos-Emonds
Source: From stagnation to innovation: Make business model reinvention real
Subject: Strategy Questions

Reset questions are the six questions a team asks when they are resetting the strategy: 

1. What is the situation, and how will this change? 
2. What is success? 
3. Where will we play? 
4. How will we win? 
5. What will stop us? 
6. What should we do?

Author: Rebecca Homkes
Source: The Illusion Of Alignment: Why Your Strategy Execution Is Failing
Subject: Strategy Questions

Too many companies suffer from data and technology investments that are siloed by function or business and not clearly connected to the company’s value creation strategy. To go beyond digital, you will need to make a priority of your data and technology strategy and be able to clearly and tangibly demonstrate how it directly enables your company’s place in the world and your plan for … [ Read more ]

Authors: Mahadeva Matt Mani, Paul Leinwand
Source: Seven imperatives for moving beyond digital
Subject: IT Questions