|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||
Overview All shrewd business owners realize that their business needs a Strategic Plan that is current, relevant and focused on action that will lead to the achievement of its goals. Becoming (or remaining) a business leader requires continued development and refinement of new strategies as your business continues to compete in the marketplace. Recommendations 
The Capstone Strategic Process
Alice came to the fork in the road.
"Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." [Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland] Planning is indispensable to the growth and success of any business, and Capstone can guide you to find the answer to the Cheshire cat's critical question: Where do you want to go? Capstone provides our clients with a map that leads to the achievement of their business goals. We listen to your needs and help you develop a customized Strategic Plan for your business that contains just the right amount of actionable detail to help your business move forward. Lori Pedelty is Capstone's futurist and strategic consultant. Ms. Pedelty provides Capstone's customers with the wisdom and business acumen she has gathered over her 25 years of developing and implementing Strategic Plans. Under her expert guidance, you will learn to utilize the knowledge and talent base of your business in order to achieve your business' unique potential. The Capstone Strategic Process is a dynamic and powerful methodology that balances inspiration with simplicity and promotes board, member, and employee support and commitment to action. The Capstone Strategic Process enables our clients to establish a sense of mission and share a compelling vision of your organization's future. Because they will have had a hand in forming the plan, stakeholders will benefit from feelings of renewed energy and enthusiasm that will have them striving together to create the next exciting chapter in the your business story. Capstone's approach empowers those affected by the plan to build their own understanding and ownership in the Plan. Utilizing the Capstone Strategic Process provides today's activities with greater focus and allows employees to contribute in meaningful and tangible ways to the future health and well being of your business. Capstone assists your business through the application of the suite of tools and methodologies that make up the Capstone Strategic Process. This process, designed to formulate a future-driven vision, is a powerful, life-changing experience for an organization. Capstone helps assess what the market demands today and how your business can meet those needs - instead of continuing to approach things exactly as you have in the past. The Capstone Strategic Process helps you identify the driving force behind your business - and then build a solid business strategy around that dynamic core. This process begins with Capstone charting the projected growth of your business into the future: What will that growth look like? What can you do to facilitate that growth? With the creation of a vision and the formulation of select strategies, you can determine what additional talents your business may need to reach its goals. It will also show you where gaps exist between the current organizational design and an organizational design optimized to help the company reach its goals. With the Capstone Strategic Process, any business can be positioned to make better decisions regarding the use of its assets, where to invest its resources and how best to benefit from its talent - placing the right people in the right positions for high performance and the successful execution of the plan. As a result of guiding the process, Ms. Pedelty and Capstone Consulting become valuable resources to help with ongoing strategic definition and successful implementation of the plan. 
Scope of Capstone's Services The Capstone Strategic Process is a multiphase process designed to assist clients in the development of a Strategic Plan. Guiding your business to new horizons requires an accurate assessment of who, what, and where the organization is today. Every one of your employees influences this, especially those in leadership roles. Capstone conducts a detailed review of your business through one-on-one, private and confidential interviews with key personnel and a careful analysis of relevant documents. By bringing fresh, unbiased eyes to this review, Capstone helps you discover aspects of your organization that have been overlooked. By talking with your key people, we develop a deeper insight into your organization - from the inside out. An offsite retreat provides the nucleus of Capstone's planning process. The retreat establishes an innovation-friendly environment that allows people to break from old patterns and ways of thinking. With the freedom to think creatively, people are more willing to tap their imaginations and formulate new strategies for achieving new, visionary goals. No two Capstone retreats are ever the same. Each is custom-tailored to meet our clients' individual needs. We uncover new and better ways to optimize the talent within your business. We nurture creativity while determining ways to address your business' critical issues. Capstone's methodologies allow your leadership team to organize its ideas as a team and work effectively to create a common vision and construct a plan to achieve it. The core of our process is the development of a strategy, customized for your business, that identifies and empowers your organization's driving force. To help you reach your business goals, Capstone assesses your organization's unique potential, identifies its driving force and areas of excellence and then nurtures those advantages, transforming them into new capabilities and greater competency - beyond anything the business has achieved before and far beyond anything the competition has to offer. These competencies become strategic weapons, providing your business with a distinct and sustainable advantage against its competitors. This places your business in an ideal position to make more informed decisions about which opportunities to pursue and how best to allocate its resources. The concept of teamwork is brought to life through Capstone's retreat experience, where we clearly and consistently demonstrate the meaning of collaboration throughout the planning session. Facilitation by Capstone guides your strategic planning team through the process by asking the right questions, keeping discussion on track, and enabling everyone to participate. The end result is a Strategic Business Plan and a specific, actionable implementation plan to support it. The near-term Business Plan is focused on the "Critical Few": those six to eight critical issues that must be addressed - and resolved - for the strategy to succeed and for the company to achieve its goals. Phase Three: Synthesizing Through years of providing strategic consulting services to numerous organizations across a wide range of sectors and industries, Capstone's partners have observed that employees frequently get caught up in discussing, debating, and deliberating over a myriad of pressing issues. Although this is perfectly natural, and these near-term matters need effective resolution, attention to short-term problems often saps attention and resources from long-term goals, making it impossible to focus on the critical matters affecting the future of your business. The Capstone Strategic Process provides a structure for these discussions. Capstone helps organizations develop the tools that offer the greatest impact on their long-term strength: vision, strategy and people. Our method empowers your team to become strategic thinkers. Capstone recognizes that all employees have the capacity to think strategically, and we empower employees to synthesize a wealth of facts in order to craft effective strategies. Following this process allows the planning team to address the issues facing your business as it exists today:
At Capstone, we are passionate about the power of strategic development. We find that our enthusiasm is contagious, transforming a process that can seem complex and challenging into a fulfilling and enjoyable experience. This approach provides employees with an effective strategy for achieving a shared vision and the commitment necessary to bring that vision to fruition. The development of the plan is just the beginning. To ensure that this plan becomes an integral, functioning part of your business, Capstone designs a customized infrastructure to aid in its implementation. Issues are addressed in order of their priority, and the highlights of the Plan are shared with those involved in its execution to gain their support and assistance . Progress is reviewed at each board meeting and periodic formal reviews with the Strategic Planning Team are held to evaluate progress and make adjustments where necessary. Review and evaluation of the plan occurs on an ongoing basis to prevent it from becoming static or irrelevant with the passing of time. Ultimately, the plan is only a set of principles to guide the team as it learns to think strategically on an ongoing basis. Adopting this approach helps your business achieve optimal results in a timely fashion. Your business benefits from a strong, integrated approach to pursuing its goals. Capstone Consulting partners with clients to build the infrastructure necessary to implement the plan and get the most out of it. Capstone's Strategic Process educates and empowers your business's Associates, and while it respects the roots of your business, it builds a springboard capable of taking your business to the next level.
Expected Outcomes The Capstone Strategic Process
Deliverables The Capstone Strategic Process
Capstone's Principles Strong Leadership is Essential
The Future Drives Today's Decisions
Hire and Retain Top-Notch Talent
Everyone Accepts Responsibility
Lori K. Pedelty Since 1995, Lori Pedelty has served as President and Co-Founder of Capstone Consulting. Lori is a strategic consultant who has received national recognition for her achievements, working with clients in a wide range of business sectors and industries. Lori serves clients with leading-edge techniques for achieving significant positive change through the formulation of strategic business plans, recruitment of top management, and development of leadership talent. Lori works with clients to shape exciting visions for the future and to develop management teams to lead the successful achievement of their visions. An integral part of her work is as a trusted business advisor to CEOs, Presidents, Managing Partners, and their Executive Teams. Lori began her career in 1980 as a CPA, rising through increasingly responsible leadership positions in operations and human resources management with Arthur Andersen. As Director of Operations for a practice in Chicago, Lori was responsible for overseeing the practice management of a $100M business unit. In 1991, Lori joined a midsize accounting firm, reporting directly to the Chairman, with firmwide responsibilities in practice management and client service responsibilities in strategic development, leading to the eventual founding of Capstone Consulting. Lori's business experience spans many areas, including sales and marketing, business development, finance, human resources, strategic planning, and general management, allowing her to bring a broad business perspective to her clients. She is a trusted business advisor to leaders in numerous organizations, and works exclusively with executives in top management. Lori's approach is pragmatic, yet creative in nature, helping clients resolve problems and pursue opportunities that position their organizations for future growth and prosperity. Lori is a member of the Board of Advisors at her alma mater, the University of Iowa, and the Board of Directors for The Menomonee Club, a boys and girls club, established in 1946. She is a teacher for the Partner's Program and member of the choir of Old St. Patrick's church, a Parent Volunteer at Chicago City Day School, and a coach for youth sports teams. Lori's achievements as a business coach have been featured in USA Today. She lectures frequently, facilitates seminars, and has authored numerous articles. In my twenty plus years of experience in executive search, I have not seen more evidence of a close, trusting, and productive consultant/client relationship than in the two companies I am personally familiar with that use Lori for high-level strategic consulting. There is warmth, energy, and common sense about her that allow people to be comfortable confiding in her and give them confidence in her counsel. Over the past nine years, Lori has become an invaluable resource to me. One of my largest customers recommended Lori as being a superb business consultant. Connecting with Lori is one of the best decisions I ever made as the owner of Ace Metal Crafts. She is a superb facilitator of the strategic planning process, but what I value most is her ongoing coaching and mentoring. Because of the strategic role she has played with Ace, coupled with her sound business judgment, she provides the sounding board I need for tough decisions. During the time that Lori has worked with us, Ace has more than doubled in size, and more importantly, our margins have improved dramatically in spite of the price deflation facing our industry. We are poised to continue our managed growth into the foreseeable future. I consider Lori to be an integral part of our success. Lori brings enormous insights to the types of issues faced on a daily basis by leaders in business. Lori has been tremendously creative when addressing a variety of business issues at our Firm. In addition to having directed the development of our strategic plan, Lori has crafted our compensation plan and organizational design. She has earned the respect of all the members of our management team. I regularly seek her counsel and value Lori as a key business advisor. I am grateful for Lori's contribution toward our Firm's growth and prosperity during the past five years, and I look forward to her continuing role in our future. Thanks to Lori's exceptional skills, our planning team has achieved more in less time than ever before. Lori knows how to keep a discussion on track, how to draw out constructive opinions, and how to prevent personal agendas or biases from undermining our productivity. Lori provides an objective, yet very committed, perspective. We may be exhausted by the end of our discussion, but we come out of the planning session with a great feeling of accomplishment. I knew where I wanted to take our Company, but I needed help in gaining the commitment of the rest of our management team to reaching this goal. Lori has helped us become a team with a shared vision. She has directed our planning efforts, helping us to determine how to make the transition from what we are today to what we want to be. She's played a vital role in the change process, skillfully guiding our planning sessions with a gavel in one hand and a compass in the other. Her sense of humor and strategic planning expertise don't hurt, either. I feel very fortunate to have access to her talent and help in what we are doing. After working with her on a variety of strategic issues for Walco, I have gained tremendous respect for Lori. She has this innate ability to assess a situation very quickly, evaluate options, and offer viable solutions to address an issue. She is quick on her feet. She is also intuitive in the business world. Beyond her solid business experience, I like her common sense. And I admire her memory-she never forgets, even the smallest of details! I also like her self-confidence. Lori's ability to communicate is second to none of all the people I have met in my life. She is a person of the highest integrity; I trust her explicitly. With Lori's guidance we have become stronger and more competitive. I have known Lori for twenty years. Initially, she was a formidable, yet fair, competitor for whom I had great respect. Later, serving on the same committee, I observed first-hand Lori's creativity and her ability to sell people on her ideas and see them implemented. Today, in a business alliance, I know Lori to be a strong consultant. People have a high degree of confidence in her advice. Again, I see people buy her ideas and, more importantly, commit to them. For years she has worked with people at the highest levels within an organization. Lori's personal success is evidence of her effectiveness as a business coach and advisor. She brings meaning to the expression "walk the talk." Lori is a smart and savvy business consultant. I have found her to be both sensitive to the needs of our organization and tough in making sure we look at the facts. She has the unique ability to be a consultant to consultants. As my coach and mentor I have known Lori to be a good listener with an uncanny ability to hear between the lines. She is pragmatic in her approach, cutting through the extraneous items to get at the core of an issue. I like and respect that she has been where I am and I trust her judgment with issues that are sensitive in nature and that are critical to the future of our organization. Lori is an important trusted advisor to me. She brings a wealth of diverse experience to the table. She has a proven ability to crystallize an issue and determine how best to respond to it. Lori keeps focused on the end result while being sensitive to the current realities when mapping out a game plan. As an advisor she provides an important role as a sounding board that is neither political nor judgmental. She helps to clear the air and get at the essence of any given situation. Services & Solutions Capstone provides creative and practical solutions in the areas of strategic planning, sales and marketing, and human resources. The focus is on taking a good organization and making it even better through the development of a compelling vision and strategies for its achievement, and talent development to ensure that the right people are doing the right things to successfully implement the plan. Our solutions are custom crafted to smoothly integrate with your organization, allowing you the freedom to focus on the production and delivery of your core products and services. Capstone delivers the expertise and staff necessary to address a variety of critical management issues in a manner that is synergistic with your organization . Our consulting services include:
We are located in the Printers Row District of Central Chicago 723 South Dearborn Street, |
||||||||||||||
