Services

The Chesterfield Group provides very high level and abstract advice to Boards of Directors and Chief Executive Officers, as well as collaborates with other Professionals who serve those same clients. By "high level", we mean matters dealing with the basic Business Model of our client companies. Different people will use such terms as "vision", "mission" or "strategic plan" more or less interchangeably to describe this level of thought process, and we deal in the realm of all these. This type of thinking typically falls to the people also charged with running the company, which means it must compete for attention with operating issues. Both are important, but the operating issues often assume priority because they tend to be urgent. The Chesterfield Group seeks to supplement the attention to these highlevel strategic matters and help Board Members and CEOs with the deep thought these topics deserve.

A company's Business Model sets out the process by which the company is going to succeed, given its unique set of competitive strengths and constraints. Developing the optimal model must consider carefully

• How success is to be defined for each particular company,
• The factors that will lead to that success,
• Setting of priorities in the allocation of financial and human resources to the execution of those success factors,
• The development and maintenance of sustainable competitive advantages, and
• An analysis of the Company's competitive strengths.

In many cases, this analysis reveals gaps that suggest a need for alliances with other companies. The recognition of alliance opportunities and development of optimum alliance structures (Collaborative Business Structures) is a particular focus of the Chesterfield Group.

Finally, a word about Boards of Directors. Both Board members and CEOs often express strong desires to increase the utilization of the vast experience of Boards to benefit their companies. The conversion of these desires into action has been accelerated in recent years by Sarbanes-Oxley and the events leading to its passage. The Chesterfield Group has also made the increase in Board effectiveness a special area of focus.

The engine powering all our advisory service offerings is a process that

• Develops a clear understanding of the objective of the client or the shared goal of the two companies, in the case of a Collaborative Business Structure.
• Determines the competitive strengths and constraints of the company (or both companies).
• Creates and evaluates a list of alternative structures that meet the objectives, while making best use of the strengths.