Client stories
Specific accounts of strategic planning work — what was stuck, what changed, and where the advice was imperfect.
Voices from recent work
“We had three growth ideas competing for the same cash. Aoraki forced us to pick one market for the year and write the capacity plan around it. The first month felt slower, but we stopped wasting sales meetings.”
“The diagnostic was uncomfortable in a useful way. It showed our ‘strategy’ was really a project list with no market focus. I wish we had done it before we hired two business development roles — that timing still stings.”
“Our co-owner meeting kept circling the same argument about opening a second kitchen. The workshop did not make the answer magical, but we left with a written test: three metrics over six months before we sign another lease.”
“Refresh week was efficient. We cut two priorities that looked good on paper and never got staff time. The write-up was shorter than last year’s, which our managers appreciated.”
Extended story: Choosing a single trade lane
A twenty-person Wellington professional services firm came to us after two years of “being everything to everyone.” Partners disagreed on whether to chase government panels or deepen private-sector niches. Through interviews and two workshops, we mapped utilisation, proposal win rates, and the real cost of unpaid bid time.
The firm chose one private-sector vertical for twelve months and capped speculative tender hours. Revenue did not spike immediately; utilisation steadied, and partner evenings shortened. One partner still argues they left government money on the table — that tension remains recorded in the decision log so it can be revisited with evidence, not fatigue.
Extended story: Succession without a foggy plan
A family-owned manufacturing business in the Waikato needed a plan that could survive a staged ownership transition. The engagement focused less on slogans and more on which product lines a non-family GM could run, and which relationships still needed the founding director. The ninety-day board included customer introductions and a pricing tidy-up before any share sale talks advanced.
If your situation sounds adjacent, tell us what decision is stuck.