Our strategic planning process helps you clearly determine where you want to go and what key actions you’ll take to get there. Whether you need a business expansion plan for growth or strategic planning for family business succession, it’s about prioritizing your resources and creating a clear path forward that your team can execute daily to drive measurable results. JACO Advisory Group helps middle market companies build strategies that work in the real world, not pretty presentations that sit on shelves.
Strategic Planning
Business Strategy Advisors for Middle Market, Closely-Held, and Family-Owned Companies
The Benefits of Strategic Planning for Middle Market Companies
As owner, CEO, or president, your top priority should be increasing company value. Whether through growth, competitive positioning, or industry consolidation, strategic planning helps you get there by:
Anticipating market changes instead of just reacting
Focusing limited resources on the highest-impact opportunities
Aligning your entire team around a common direction
Making decisions faster with a clear framework
Building sustainable competitive advantages
Why Choose JACO As Your Strategic Planning Partner
Business Strategy Advisors Who Understand Your Challenges
Business Owner Perspective
Each of our senior-level team members has owned or operated businesses like yours, which means we create practical strategies that account for cash flow constraints, family dynamics, market shifts, and resource limitations.
Simplified Complexity
We distill complicated situations into clear, actionable plans, giving your team clarity on what to do and how to execute.
Honest Communication
As your strategic business plan advisor, we tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, ensuring you address real issues before they become bigger problems.
True Partnership
We’re not transactional—we’re relational. Some clients need us to implement alongside them, others just need the strategy. We adapt to what works for you.
Comprehensive Expertise
While we’re known for helping companies through challenging periods, we also work with healthy, growing businesses that want to get ahead of market changes and maximize their potential.
How We Helped a $50M Manufacturer Focus on What Matters Most
When a $50M manufacturing company needed to prioritize growth opportunities after an acquisition, JACO helped them move from analysis paralysis to clear action. Through deep-dive segment assessments and strategic workshops, we helped our client narrow down numerous growth ideas to just four focused initiatives: two company-wide initiatives to integrate their acquired business and two targeted market expansions into adjacent segments. The result: quantified project charters with clear benefits, timelines, costs, and risks–plus a roadmap for improved asset utilization and growth from their operational core.
Our Approach: Disciplined, Focused, Intentional
We don’t force every client through the same process. There’s no right way or wrong way to do strategic planning—only a way that works.
We meet you where you are in your business’s lifecycle and maturity, then use the right tools from our collection of experiences to help you succeed. Unlike many strategic planning consultants, we have a defined methodology with proven protocols and frameworks, but we tailor our approach to your unique situation and business needs.
It Starts With Understanding Your Industry and Strategic Position
JACO will collaborate with you using a variety of tools to help you understand your industry better than anyone else, so well that you can predict your competitors’ actions and pre-emptively take action to beat them to the punch.
Strategic positioning then answers two essential questions:
Where Will You Play?
Finding segments with growth potential where customers value what you uniquely provide and you can capitalize on trends before competitors.
How Will You Win?
Leveraging your unique capabilities through specialization, superior service, speed, reliability, or cost efficiency for an effective business expansion plan.
The best strategy in the world can’t overcome a declining industry, but in the right market with the right capabilities, mid-sized companies can outperform giants. We make sure you understand where your industry is headed so you can position accordingly.
Our 4-Step Process for Strategic Business Planning
We follow a proven framework that moves from understanding to action:
Shape–Industry Analysis
We start by helping you understand your industry better than anyone else. This includes analyzing competitors, market trends, customer needs, and where profitable opportunities exist.
Strategic Positioning–Where and How to Compete
With industry clarity, we help you define your strategic vision and make the fundamental choices: which markets to pursue and how you’ll win against competitors.
Strategic Initiatives–Translating Strategy Into Action
We convert your strategy into executable plans with clear priorities, ownership, and timelines. Everything gets distilled into a strategy-on-a-page that guides daily decisions.
Implementation and Measurement
Strategy without consistent execution is just theory. We help you build accountability systems, performance dashboards, and regular review cycles to ensure results.
Frequently Asked Questions About Strategic Planning
How long does strategic planning take?
It depends on your situation and complexity. Some clients complete the process in a couple of months, others take longer. The key is doing it right for your specific circumstances and business lifecycle stage. JACO tailors the timeline to your needs and ensures you get a strategy that works, not just one that’s fast.
What if we’re in a rapidly changing industry?
That’s exactly when strategic planning matters most. We build a strategic business plan that is structured enough to hold people accountable but flexible enough to accommodate change. As NHL legend Wayne Gretzky said, you skate where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. We help you anticipate industry changes and position your business where the opportunities will be, not just where they are today.
Do you work with companies outside your core industries?
Absolutely. While we have deep expertise in manufacturing, distribution, and industrial services, we often work in other industries. We always assign multiple team members to every project—one leads while the others listen and ask clarifying questions. This ensures we don’t miss critical details and helps us pull the right insights through systematic questioning. You understand your business better than we do–we help you think through it objectively.
How do you ensure the plan gets implemented?
We either work with clients who have existing operational capabilities to execute or we help build those capabilities. Some clients need weekly or monthly reviews for corporate strategic planning, while others are more self-sufficient. We adapt to what each client needs to be successful.
Do you only work with companies in distress?
Not at all. While we have deep expertise helping companies through difficult periods, we also work with healthy, profitable businesses that want to grow strategically and stay ahead of market changes. We love working with companies looking to go from good to great.
What makes JACO different from strategic planning consultants?
Consultants analyze your problems and hand you recommendations. We analyze your problems and help you solve them. As business owners and leaders ourselves, we understand what it takes to actually implement change in the real world of limited resources and competing priorities. As your strategic business plan advisor, we don’t just tell you what to do–we work with you to make it happen.
Ready to Build a Strategy That Actually Works?
Stop letting market changes catch you off guard. Get the clarity and roadmap you need to anticipate opportunities, focus your resources, and drive measurable growth. Our strategic planning process has helped middle-market, privately-held, and family-owned companies achieve sustainable competitive advantages through decades of combined experience.
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